Fusion
by TheSilencedOne
Summary: Two teenagers decide to go on the adventure of a lifetime by joining either the U.N.S.C. or the GF Galactic Federation . When they do, they are told they will be taken under the wing of either Samus Aran, or Master Chief for further training...
1. Chapter 1

Alright guys, this is my first Story on the internet...EVER...its a combination of Halo, Metroid, and the real world (Hense "fusion"), hope you guys like it :)

* * *

**Fusion**

**Chapter 1**

Zebes date: 2334

Earth date: 1992

K2-L date: 2092

A new day on the planet K2-L starts as the sun rises up from the horizon. All is normal, calm and peaceful. But this seemingly wonderful morning would not last for very long…for off in the distance, perched on top of a sharp rocky cliff overhanging the city where Samus Aran lived, was the space dragon in charge of the space pirates. This dragon's name was Ridley. He stood over 25 feet tall, with a wing span of over 40 feet, his long gleaming snout shinning in the morning sun, his barbed tail scraping against the hard, gravely cliff. Beside him stood several squadrons of space pirates: infantry, commanders, special ops, commandos, spec ops, air assault, he even had a few berserker lords mixed in with the wide variety of troops. The pirates themselves were very strange, some of them growled and snarled to each other, while others would speak normally and just talk amongst themselves. It was almost as if the pirates were either born as beasts or as intelligent life forms.

"We'll start with this city…" Ridley began.

In response some of the pirates primed their weapons, while others simply let out a low growl, or just stood there silently, not even acknowledging the fact that their leader had just spoken.

"Take all the Afloraltite you can possibly steal…and do whatever it takes to get it…"

Afloraltite was a valuable mineral found deep underground of the planet, and was used to power ships teleporters, and vehicles. It was very explosive, flammable, and extremely toxic.

Samus should not have been at the mine with her father that day…

The workers were just simply minding their own business, mining minerals, talking to each other about the war going on, and some still eating breakfast. They never saw the attack vessels coming…because next thing they knew they were being hailed by missiles and shots of crystallized dark beam. Any worker who was hit by the dark beam, was immediately swallowed by purple crystals that burned like a hundred suns…they died within seconds of the impact… The workers were helpless; they were miners, not military troops! They had no weapons, no way of defending themselves. The only thing they could do was run, hide, and wait for the pirates to steal anything of value, and then leave. Strangely enough, Samus's father had been expecting the space pirates for quite some time now…and he knew exactly what weapon to fabricate for such an occurrence.

A few pirates entered the main storage area that contained most of the mine's Afloraltite.

"Jackpot!" one of them yelled.

"Lord Ridley will be so pleased with us!" another said.

"Not if he never gets it…" came a voice from behind them.

The pirates turned, some in shock and others in horror, for what stood at the other end of the room was Samus's father. It turns out the weapon he had created…was a flamethrower.

"He has a flamethrower!" one of them screamed,

"He's gonna ignite the Afloraltite and burn us all!"

"Precisely" he replied, and with that he pulled the trigger ignited the highly flammable mineral, and that was that. There was a massive explosion big enough that it covered the entire city… The explosion itself was so powerful that anyone within a three mile radius of it was instantly vaporized, and everything else the fire and flames reached was incinerated. By that point, Samus had run far enough into the forest that she was not harmed by the explosion…not too much anyway. She only got a few small burns and cuts from running through bushes and tree branches, but other than that, she was fine.

She managed to survive for three days without much to eat or drink. That's when the Chozo found her. One of the Chozo, named Old Bird decided to take Samus back to his planet, Zebes. Unfortunatley, her body was unable to adapt to Zebes's atmosphere, so they had to fuse her with Chozo DNA, and she was able to live in the harsh environments the planet contained. She lived alongside the Chozo, learning about the planets and stars, training to fight against any possible threats in the galaxy, and just learning about the Chozo as well.

Eventually, when she got old enough, she joined the Galactic Federation and became a bounty hunter…but every time she went out or finished a mission, she couldn't help but think about the fact that something was missing from her life…To this day, she still has no idea what it is…

Unpleasant surprise. Fear. Loss. Anguish. Hurt. Eternal Depression. Pain. Longing. Comfort. Love. Sadness. Loss. Repeat.

* * *

Zebes date: 2353

Earth date: 2011

K2-L date: 2111

The sun was high in the sky; the skies were clear and beautiful. The mountains stood tall and proud, their enormous peaks glinting off the sun's rays. Racing through the valley plains below was a small but agile military ATV, known as a mongoose. There were two people riding the vehicle.

The driver's name was Connor. The only way to describe him is a 14 year old teenager over six feet tall, with dark blue eyes, dark brown hair that's kinda curly at the ends, pretty big muscles, and wearing jeans, a perfectly white shirt and carrying a DMR on his back. This is NOT the kinda guy you wanna mess with. He may not be in martial arts or anything, but his punches can seriously KILL. Not to mention he is also carrying a weapon.

The passenger was his best friend, Kelly (or Kel for short), who's a BIG heavy metal fan. He looks like one to; with long, light brown, almost blonde hair, that usually covers one of his eyes. He has dark green eyes, which have that sort of look to them like they could burn holes right through people. He wears a lot of black also: black jeans with a chain attached to them, a black hoody, black shoes, the only think on him that isn't black is his shirt, which has the picture of a heart torn in half, bleeding black blood, and bloody spikes sticking out of one side. Beside the heart it read "Broken". He's not gothic though…he's just kind of emo. He's also a brown belt in martial arts and carries a Spiker and a knife.

"And we've been takin' care of business, every day, takin' care of business, every way; we've been takin' care of business, it's alright, takin care of business, and working overtime!" the two friends sang along with the radio as it went into the guitar solo.

"That song is frikin awesome!" said Connor.

"I know!" Kel replied.

Neither of them were very big classical music fans, but every once in a while, they listened to stuff kinda like this.

Kel was pretty focused on the three day driving trip through southern BC, watching out for any muggers, RCMP and the border crossing, until his observant gaze was slowly lifted to the road ahead. About another mile away was what looked like some kind of building, probably the border.

"Hey, we should probably turn off the music; the border crossing-thing is coming up." He told Connor.

"Oh! Right!" Connor replied.

There was a small, but high pitched sound as he turned the knob to the "off" position. Seeing an opportunity, Kel brought out a portable CD player he had secretly brought, and cranked it up to full blast. Connor nearly jumped out of his seat when "Stupify" started blasting from behind him.

"What da hell man?" the angry driver screamed over the sudden sound of heavy metal music in his ears. Meanwhile Kel was head banging, like he didn't even know his friend had said something.

"Hey!" Connor yelled. Kel turned down the music, howling with laughter.

"Oh man! That was hilarious! You should have seen the look on your face!"

"You know, when you're not being all silent and creepy like you usually are, you're a jerk"

"Aww, come on man, I saw an opportunity"

"I hate you" he said jokingly.

They both laughed the rest of the way until they got to the border.


	2. Chapter 2

**Fusion**

**Chapter 2**

As they kept riding towards the border, a question made its way into Kel's mind.

"Hey, what are we supposed to say to them anyway? 'Uh yeah, we just built these weapons, and uh, now we're gonna join the army'" he said sarcastically.

"Don't worry, I know exactly what we're gonna say to them…"

"Who's worrying?"

As they pulled up to the border crossing, a rather chubby crossing guard wearing an RCMP hat, and what looked like a rookie, stepped out.

"All right, let me guess, you boys wanna join the army!" The guard and the rookie both died laughing.

_What? That wasn't even that funny…_ Connor thought to himself.

"Actually that's exactly what we're doing" Connor said in protest, which only made them laugh harder.

"Face palm" Kel said sarcastically.

"Shut up" Connor hissed.

"Oh stop it; you guys are killing us…" The guard and the rookie stared at each other for a split second, and then started howling with laughter.

"But…but seriously, you two wouldn't last 10 seconds over that border line…" the rookie mocked.

"Oh yeah?" Connor replied, "We'll see about that…"

He pressed on the gas, and they started past the border. A few moments later, they stopped in front of a tall guy wearing a black ski mask, carrying a crowbar.

"Outta the quad boys" he said in a low commanding voice.

Reluctantly, the two teens hoped out of their mongoose and watched helplessly as the jacker rode off with it.

Kel turned to the guards, "How many seconds was that?"

"Twelve"

Not two seconds after the guard replied, the two boys pointed at them and in one voice yelled, "IN YOUR FACE!"

They slapped their knees and laughed at the guards. Embarrassed, the rookie and his boss just stared at one another, and then to the teenagers taunting them.

"Oh man you guys just got pwned!" Connor said, continuing the hilarity of the situation.

"You guys totally brought that upon yourselves!" Kel shot at them between laughs.

"You...you thought it was funny before, but look who's laughing now coppers!" they both howled with laughter.

They started down the long, not-so-promising road ahead of them, laughing too hard to care about the fact that they lost their only means of transportation.

Four hours later, the two of them were still walking down the deserted desert road. It was about 6:31, and it was getting dark out, the clear blue sky becoming tainted with an orange-ish hue that slowly faded into purple. The mountains, tall and broad eventually, started to fade in to the background of the night. Strangely enough though, the cold of night had not come yet, so the two were still trapped in the heat of day. It didn't bother Connor as much as it did Kel, who was wearing almost all black.

"Augh, this heat is killing me..." he complained.

"Well then maybe you shouldn't have worn so much black."

"Hey, how was I supposed to know our vehicle was gonna get jacked?"

"...Good point" Connor replied.

"Hey, do you have any more of those portable freezer packs?" Kel asked.

"No, no...My last freezer pack melted a few hours ago, remember THAT?" Connor shot his friend a mean look.

"Hey, my hair was gonna light on fire!"

"Kelly, I already told you, like twelve times that it's not hot enough for that to happen."

"But it sure felt like it" he murmured under his breath.

"Hey, what's that?" Connor pointed to something off in the distance.

"Wait what? What?"

"Look where I'm pointing" Connor told him.

Kel could just barely make out what looked like an old motel off in the distance.

"Oh yeah, I see it, so what?"

"It's getting to dark out to walk much further; we'll have to spend the night there."

"Are you sure? It looks, kinda...you know...busted up."

"Would you rather sleep outside?" Connor asked the question like he was talking to an idiot.

"Where the killer cats and the vultures can get me? Heck no."

"Well then, come on lets go."

The door to the first room of the motel opened without a sound, and, because of the wind, slammed against the wall. They stumbled into the dark right as the wind got inside and slammed the door shut. It startled them both half to death.

"Where are we? I can't see a thing in here" Kel said through the black.

"I don't know, flip the light switch."

"Is there even a light switch in here?"

"I don't know."

"Is there even lights?" Kel said sarcastically.

"Kel, shut up of course there is."

They both felt blindly along the walls of the room until Connor felt something under his hand.

"Hey genius, I found the switch" Connor said tauntingly.

"Well, turn it on already" Kel said, "I hate being blind"

Connor flipped the switch...and immediately wished he hadn't. There was a bloody knife, an elite plasma rifle, and a space pirate shield scattered across the floor. But that's not what scared them. What freaked them out is what they saw on the wall in front of them. Painted, in blood, was a compass rose, something commonly found on something like a world map. There was also something written across it. All hope is gone.

"That's...really creepy..." Connor said in a shaky voice.

Kel stayed silent; something that he's really good at.

They turned, and left the room...without a word.


	3. Chapter 3

**Fusion**

**Chapter 3**

The next few rooms were totally clean and perfect looking, so they stayed in the second one they found. There were two beds, directly across the room from each other, each with its own bedside table and lamps. Oddly enough, there was also an old-looking computer in the corner of the room.

"Well, this isn't so bad right?" Connor said. Kel just stayed silent.

"I hate when you do that, one second you won't shut up, and then the next second, you won't say a word," he complained. Kel still stayed silent.

"I'm just different" he replied quietly.

"Whatever."

That night, Kel, couldn't fall asleep. Every time he closed his eyes, he would see visions of the bloody compass rose. But there was always something different about every time. Sometimes it would be less detailed, other times; it would be very large in size, then one time, instead of saying "All hope is gone", it said "Death to us all". Then, there was one vision that really creeped him out: as usual, he saw the compass rose…but there was someone beside it. She was tall, about his height; and she wore a pitch black suit that tightly fit around her thin body. Her head was down, and he couldn't see her eyes, but what really caught his eye was her hair. It was very long, shiny, beautiful, and tied in a pony tail at the end…but there was something off about it. It was blue. Her hair had a weird light blue, almost turquoise color to it. But she wasn't _bad_ looking, in fact she was very pretty, and Kel actually felt a bit attracted to her.

Finally after about 2 hours or so, he closed his eyes, and let the darkness cover him once more. The visions didn't come this time…and he fell peacefully into the dream world that he forever yearned for.

Connor wasn't doing much better. He actually fell asleep though, but that's part of the problem. As soon as he closed his eyes, he slowly started to fade away, and drift into the dream world. He soon wished he hadn't… In his dream, his vision was blurred and foggy, and his hearing wasn't very good, making it nearly impossible to hear anything at all…but he was still able to see the girl standing in front of him. His girlfriend. She was tall, almost his height, but not quite. She had long, brown, wavy hair that went past her shoulders, and had sweet, welcoming eyes. At first he was happy to see her again after days of not seeing her…but his excitement quickly changed to a strange mixture of fear, loss and confusion, when he started towards her. The closer he got, the more she started to fade... until he got close enough to touch her. When he did, whatever was left of her disintegrated in an explosion of light.

He woke with a start, breathing heavily.

The bright sun shone through the open window of the motel and the wind blew through the window that they forgot to close, which was more than enough to wake them.

"Ugh…dammit…stupid wind…" Connor said tired and breathlessly. He noticed Kel wasn't anywhere in the room. Wondering where his friend was, he stood up, and walked out of the room. He was welcomed by a mixture of blinding sunlight, and hurricane-force winds.

"Ugh! Come on Kelster, were _are _you?" he said aloud, slightly annoyed. It wasn't unusual for Kel to just wander off like this.

_If I'm quiet, I'll slide up behind you…and if you hear me I'll enjoy trying to find you… _Kel thought to himself as he snuck up on Connor.

"Hey how's it going?" he said in a regular voice. Connor jumped.

"Dammit Kelly! One of these days, you're gonna sneak up behind me, startle me and I'll turn around and smack you one…and it _won't _be an accident."

"Yeah, yeah whatever, that's what you always say. So when is that day gonna come anyway?"

"…Soon." Connor said hesitantly.

"Yeah, sure whatever. Hey, wanna know what was going through my mind when I was sneaking up on you?" Kel asked.

"Not really. But I have a pretty good idea."

"Oh do you now?" Kel said tauntingly.

"SlipKnoT. Obviously," he replied, "you're a metal head, what else could possibly be going through your mind?"

"Disturbed, Mushroomhead-"

"I mean the bands you actually _listen _to." Connor cut him off.

"…Disturbed, Mushroomhead…"

"Ok, I get it; you listen to more than just SlipKnoT."

"You bet I do. So, anyway, we should probably start walking before the sun gets too high and lights our hair on fire."

"I already told you that you hair cant-"

"'Cant light on fire', I know Connor." Kel said, repeating what Connor had said earlier.

6 hours later, they were still walking through the burning desert plains, not even a glimpse of life in sight. Luckily, the motel had plenty of water, water bottles, and ice packs to last them about 5 hours. But that didn't change the fact that it was +40˚C outside. Of course, Kel was doing his usual complaining about the heat, and how there weren't enough clouds to darken the day…the way he liked it. Unfortunately, his complaining was the least of their problems. All the freezer packs were gone, and their water supply was running low.

"I don't know if I'll make another 30 steps." Kel said breathlessly.

"Don't worry, you'll make it." Connor said encouragingly. 15 steps later, Kel started to fall.

"Waiter…check please…" he said before falling face first into the steaming sand.

"Are you kidding me?" Connor said slightly surprised, "You seemed fine 20 steps ago."

"It was 15 actually…" Kel replied, still breathless and exhausted.

"Wait, you counted?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Cause I have nothing better to do!"

"Well I do…" Connor said blankly.

"Yeah? What's that?"

"Texting."

For some strange reason, that caused something inside of Kel to snap.

"Are you kidding me?" He yelled at Connor. "We've been on the road for 3 days, we've been walking through the burning plains of southern BC for 6 hours, and now you're telling me you have nothing better to do than text?"

"Yes."

"Oh my god…you're hopeless…" Kel said, very annoyed.

Kel couldn't tell if he was seeing things…or if the structure off in the distance really was a building of some sort. Its long, dark shape stretching across the plains, almost too far to see.

"Hey, what's that? I think I see a building off in the distance…"

"It's a mirage. Come on, let's keep moving."

"Wait-…what? How do you know? You're staring at a phone screen!"

"Uh…" Connor said, with two thirds of his attention on his phone.

"Could you just look up, so you would know what I'm talking about?"

"Just…just hold on one second…"

"…It's been more than a second…" Kel said impatiently.

"Shut up…"

"…Been about 5 seconds…"

"Shut up."

"10 seconds…"

"Shut up!"

"15 seconds-"

"Do you mind? I'll be done when I'm done!" Connor shot back angrily.

Kel couldn't stop himself from doing what he did next. He stood up, and pushed the phone out of Connor's hands. It hit the sand with a loud "thump".

"What the heck man?" Connor said, with that sort of "I'm gonna kill you in a few seconds" tone.

"Will you stop texting for ONE second and just LOOK?" Kel said, while gesturing to the building of in the distance.

"Ok, yes, I see it," Connor said, dripping with sarcasm, "It's amazing…whoa…"

"I know, it looks like a pretty big building doesn't it?"

"That…is the biggest boulder I've ever seen in my life!" Connor exclaimed.

"Yeah I know- Wait what?" Kel said, confused.

"Look at it! Don't you see it?" Connor said, pointing at the spot he thought he saw the boulder.

"I…I don't see anything…"

"But, it's right there! It's huge!" Connor said still pointing.

For a moment, Kel just stood there cluelessly, and then said, "Let's get going…"

Not 15 steps after he started walking, he walked straight into a massive boulder. It totally caught him off guard, and he fell straight to the ground. Surprised, startled and confused, he got up, and tried to figure out what had just happened. Then it hit him: Connor was right; there actually WAS a mirage…which ironically, happened to be camouflaging the boulder in front of Kel.

"See? I told you there was boulder there!" Connor said tauntingly.

"I think this desert is starting to get to our heads. Come on, we gotta move…"

"Good idea…" Connor replied as they started off towards the massive structure…


	4. Chapter 4

**Fusion**

**Chapter 4**

It took forever, but Connor finally managed to haul Kel's unconscious body the rest of the way to the military base. _Maybe I should have listened to him when he said he was going to have a heat stroke…_ he thought to himself. About a half hour ago, Kel had passed out on the sand, and Connor was forced to pick him up and haul him the entire rest of the way to the base…which _really_ annoyed him. Kel may not be fat, but he's still pretty heavy to carry over your shoulders.

Finally, he reached the base, which stood well over 50 feet tall, equipped with 3-inch bullet proof glass, massive turret mounted defense walls, and an entrance gate that appeared to be pretty much indestructible. There were two soldiers carrying carbines standing guard at the gate.

"You there!" one of them yelled, "Who are you? Are you authorized to be in these parts?"

Connor just stood there a moment, the weight of his friend starting to way him down in the blazing heat.

"I'm Connor, and this is my friend, Kel."

"What happened to him?" the other soldier asked.

"I think he had a heat stroke. We were just walking, when he fell face first into the sand." Connor replied.

"It probably has something to do with all that black he's wearing."

"Maybe. But, he doesn't do too well in the heat regardless."

"What are you two doing here anyway? Planning to join the military? At such a young age?"

"Pretty much, it wasn't _all_ my idea though… He told me one day that he didn't know what to do with his life, so he said he would join the U.N.S.C. or the GF, and fight alongside all the soldiers for the greater good. He likes fighting, and he's always wanted to explore space, so that's probably the main reason for it…"

"And you went along with it?" the soldier asked.

"Well…yeah, I mean, I thought it would be pretty cool too. So we built our own weapons, and we used our money to buy a mongoose which we used to drive here. But it got stolen yesterday, so we just walked the rest of the way…"

"Sounds like you two have had quite an adventure so far…considering we are extremely far away from civilization. And you two look exhausted, why don't you guys come inside?"

_Wow, that was easy…_ Connor thought to himself.

They entered the gate and walked down a narrow hallway, lined with pictures of soldiers from the U.N.S.C. and the GF. At the very end of the pictures in the hallway, there were two final pictures on the walls. One of was a picture of Samus in her armor suit, and the other picture was one of Master Chief.

When they got to the end of the hallway, one of the soldiers said he would take Kel to the medical bay to try to help him wake up. The other soldier escorted Connor to another room that held over two dozen other people. They were all new recruits, just Connor and Kel. Some of them wore armor, and carried weapons, others were dressed in regular clothes and carried smaller, or mid-ranged weapons like what Connor and Kel were doing.

Connor was pretty surprised that he saw anyone in there at all, especially since they were all the way out in the middle of nowhere. _There are a lot of people in here, maybe I can talk to some of them and see what they're like… _he thought.

Back in the medical bay, Kel was starting to wake up.

"W-what? Where am I? What happened?" he said, sitting up in the hospital bed. There was a soldier and a doctor in the room with him.

"You're in the medical bay of a military base you and your friend were travelling to. You suffered from a terrible heat stroke, and passed out, but you should be better soon." the doctor replied.

"Oh yeah…I remember now…that really sucked. I don't think I've ever had a heat stroke before…"

"Be happy you haven't. They can cause lots of damage to your body."

"Yeah, they could, couldn't they…" Kel said, almost in a whisper. "Where'd my friend go to?"

"He's in the waiting room with all the other newcomers…"

"Wait, hold on, _newcomers_?"

"Yes. There are about 28 recruits; most of them are like you two, who showed up unexpectedly."

Kel left the medical bay and headed down a narrow hallway that ended with a sign pointing to various locations, such as: waiting room, training room, gun range, commander's office, etc… He was really curious as to what the gun range was like, but then thought, _No, I can't…not yet anyways…First I have to find Connor…_ and with that he headed into the waiting room. He walked up to a big metal door that read "Waiting room" on it. There was no door handle, which confused him slightly. He decided to try to push the door open, but as soon as he extended his arm toward it, the door swiftly slid into the wall with a small hissing sound.

"Oookay then…" he said, almost startled.

He immediately saw what the doctor was talking about when he entered the room, which was filled with over two dozen people. Some of them carrying weapons and armor, some not. His eyes moved about the room, searching for Connor, but not finding him. Finally, his eyes landed on a tall, muscular guy in a white shirt and blue jeans. Even though his back was turned, he could tell it was Connor. Then he noticed the massive crowd he was standing in. _I should have know, being a social butterfly, that he'd go off into the big crowds, and start talking to people, _ he thought, a bit annoyed. He hated it when Connor did that, cause then he'd have to go into the crowd and try to drag him out…which is what he disliked the most. Kel was anything, BUT social able…he was very shy.

"Well, here goes nothin'…" he said quietly. As he started towards the crowd, he thought, _you know what? Screw this, I'll go somewhere else and just wait for him._

There were quite a few benches and metal chairs around the room, some in corners, others bolted to the walls, others hidden around corners. There were also many, tall metal double-sided columns that had benches attached to each side of them, almost like stalls of some kind. So Kel, decided to go sit at one of them, out of sight, where he could sharpen the blades of his Spiker, and his knife.

Samus Aran and Master Chief stood in a room overlooking the waiting room, observing the many recruits and newcomers. They were however, quite surprised at the fact that some of them dared to come here armor less, just dressed in casual clothes…which clearly, get's you killed…easily.

"They'll never make it." said the Chief.

"We'll see," Samus said in response, "We can't judge them by their appearance."

The Chief's eyes slowly made their way toward the crowd, and spotted Connor.

"I honestly don't know how they expect to survive, I mean look at some of these guys…they have no armor, or protection of any kind. Just weapons. Others just have armor that probably have hidden weapons, but still. Do they have training of any kind? I think not. They look like average people."

"Maybe, but that's why we're being chosen to take one or two of them under our wing. If they need training of any kind, they'll get it."

"I hope you're right…" and with that, the Chief turned and left, without another word.


	5. Chapter 5

**Fusion**

**Chapter 5**

Admiral Dane and Lord Hood were standing in the overlook room with Samus, when the Chief left.

"Alright then," said the Admiral, "looks like the Chief is no mood to talk. Are you?"

Samus stood there motionless for a moment.

"Samus?"

"I think I'll manage…" Samus replied quietly. She headed through the metallic door and, started down a rather narrow hallway, towards ground level. She peered through a door on the ground level and saw that most people have gathered into a big crowd around a tall, muscular boy, probably no more than 14 years old. He seemed to be the center of attention in that group. The rest of the people in the room were pretty much scattered all over the place, some in corners, other just standing wherever. Then she spotted someone… he looked about the tall boy's age, with long light brown hair, wearing mostly black, and sitting around the corner of one of the pillars, probably trying to avoid too much attention. He was sharpening the blades of what looked like a brute spiker along with a knife of some sort. She started to approach the boy, wondering how to start the short conversation she hoped to establish.

"Hey…" she said when got over to him.

"Hey…" he responded quietly. Then he looked up, and locked gaze with the bounty hunter in front of him.

"Samus Aran…" he began, "I never thought I'd ever meet you in person. Ever since I heard about you when I was younger, I always wanted to see you in real life…"

"You heard of me when you were younger?"

"Yeah, about eight, I think." he replied, keeping the same quiet tone. "I was always told that you were the greatest warrior in space. I would hear about the adventures you had, against the pirates, Dark Samus, Mother Brain, Kraid…"

"I see you've heard quite a bit about me." Samus said, a bit startled about how much this boy knew.

"But what I heard the most about you is the fact that you were really good-looking... People would say you were beautiful, with deep blue eyes, and long, golden blond hair…looks like those stories were true."

For the first time in a long time, Samus smiled.

"So what are you doing down here on Earth?"

Samus hesitated for a moment, and then said, "I was told we were getting a few new recruits, and that I and the Chief would have to take one or two of them under our wing, for, what the Admiral calls 'further training'."

"Really?" The boy said quietly, but still glowing with excitement.

"Yeah, but first, all of the newcomers have to pass various tests to see if they're ready…"

"Oh… that'll be a hard obstacle for us to conquer…"

"Are you here with someone else?" Samus asked, a bit more curious about the boy than she was before.

"Yeah, with my friend Connor, he's that tall guy over there in the middle of that giant crowd…" He replied and pointed to where Connor was standing. "I'm sure it's quite obvious that he's a bit better at making friends than me…I'm just really shy…" he said a little quieter.

It was at that moment that the crowd started to break up, and Connor walked away.

"If you want to talk to my friend at all, the time would be now..." the boy said.

Samus turned and started to walk away, and then said, "It was nice meeting you."

"It was nice meeting you too..." the lonely teen responded.

Samus started to make her way over to Connor, when he spotted her. He waited until she reached him before he spoke.

"Hey," Connor said in disbelief that he is actually meeting the one and only Samus Aran, "I know you, your Samus aren't you?"

"Yes, how'd you figure that out?" Samus replied, quite surprised.

"My friend would talk about you every now and then, telling me about some of the stuff you went through. I thought it was pretty interesting."

"Let me guess, your friend is the quiet one sharpening his blades over there..." she said pointing to where Kel was sitting. Connor walked over to the side before he saw where his friend was sitting.

"What the-? How long was he been here?"

"Long enough, for me to have a conversation with him."

"You talked to him?" Connor asked, a bit curious.

"Yes. It wasn't a very long conversation, but it was enough to figure out what he's like."

"Oh. Well? What's he like to you?"

"He's definitely a quiet one, but he seemed fairly nice to me."

"He's just lonely...and shy. He'll talk a lot more once he's gotten to know you." Connor replied.

"What is it with him anyway? He seems...sad."

Connor just stayed silent for a moment. Finally he said, "Do you really want to know why he's like that?"

"...Yes." Samus said, more curious than before.

"This may take a while to explain...just so you know."

"It's ok, I don't mind."

"I don't know the whole story, but, from what he told me it all started when he first started school. For some reason, people didn't like him, and all he tried to do was be nice. Anyway, people would bully him, harass him, insult him, and just generally, bring him down. This carried on for almost nine years straight, until it finally stopped."

"That's why he's like that?" Samus asked.

"That's not even the half of it. When he was in grade 7 and 8, he started too really like a girl named Olivia. He didn't talk about her much, but he said she was really good looking, and that she was kind of quiet...which is part of the reason he liked her so much. Unfortunately, because of his shyness, he got to talk to her. That's when it happened. She switched schools, he never saw her again, and he was left alone. I started to notice him becoming more and more quiet and, well...angry over the next few weeks or so. When I asked him what was up, he told me everything. He was never the same after that..."

"But why was he so bent out of shape over one person?"

"Because he said that he thought that she might actually be interested in him...which would make her the first girl to ever like him."

Samus just stood there a moment, trying to process everything she had just heard. She knew there was something...different about the boy...something about how he seemed lonely...and sad.

"Did he ever get better?" She finally asked.

"No...Not really, he's still recovering from it. It may be years before he gets better."

He paused for a moment, then said, "By the way I'm Connor."


	6. Chapter 6

**Fusion**

**Chapter 6**

Dark Samus sat there, armor less, levitating in a column of pure, translucent phazon. A day or two ago, she had sensed two individuals heading for the military training base. When she realized it wasn't a dream, she opened up what looks like a clear, circular window of phazon, which allows her to see anywhere and anything on a single planet. Peering through the window, she saw what appeared to be two boys on some sort of ATV style vehicle. When she took a closer look at them both, her heart sank. They were very good looking; the driver looked very tall and had muscles big enough to look like he had rocks in his biceps. The passenger had long brown hair, and wore mostly black, except for his white shirt. They both carried weapons that she didn't recognize, and never saw before in her life. After closely observing them for a while, only one thought came into her head. Corruption.

After that, she spent the next day or so trying to mentally reach their minds. The only time she was successful, was when they went to sleep, and she found her way into their minds…and dreams.

Because Connor was already dreaming, his mind was completely impenetrable, and she couldn't find a way inside. Kel on the other hand, wasn't even dreaming at all, so he was completely, open. As soon as she invaded his mind, she immediately went through his thoughts and memories. She found out exactly who he was, who his friend was, and the many details in their personalities. Although she wasn't in Connor's mind, she was still able to figure who he was through Kel's thoughts and memories. She found out all she could; Connor is the outgoing one, Kel is the quiet one, they both love to fight…but there was one thing she noticed the most. Kel's loneliness. On the outside, except for his general appearance, he seemed fine…but in reality, he had never felt truly loved before. He came close to cutting himself a few times, but never did…but also, he's felt the kind of emotional pain so powerful, it becomes physical.

Dark Samus went over these memories of emotions and feelings carefully, then thought for a moment. Maybe she didn't have to corrupt both of them…maybe just one will do. One that could be made completely loyal with the emotion of love.

A little smile crept across her face, and she giggled at the thought of her idea…


	7. Chapter 7

**Fusion**

**Chapter 7**

The metallic bunk-room door slide open with a silent hiss of steam and slippery metal against rubber. Connor stepped in, and jumped at the sight of the room. Kel had somehow repainted it all black in less than 5 minutes, and had already hung up Disturbed and SlipKnoT posters everywhere.

"What the hell did you do?" Connor cried.

"They told me to make myself at home…" Kel replied. He had a knack for taking things to the extreme occasionally.

"Yeah, but I don't think repainting the room was what they had in mind…How'd you do it so fast anyway?"

"Remember that idea I had for the paint bomb?" Kel asked, with a devious smile.

"Yeah. Why? Oh…wait…never mind." Connor said. "Anyway," he continued, "it's time to go down to the training room, or whatever they call it…"

"Ok, I'll be there in a second…" Kel replied as Connor walked away.

_Just wait until they see what we have in store for them…_ Connor thought as he walked down the metallic corridor. He strapped his custom armor lock to his wrist, and ran towards the door.

The training room was packed full of all the new recruits and rookies, all of them priming their weapons, or discussing strategies while waiting to go in. Connor just stood there wondering, how many of them will make it through. _Where's Kel? _He thought to himself, _If he doesn't get here soon, he'll miss the training…_ Almost as if in response to his thoughts, Kel burst through the door and literally tackled Connor.

"Ow! What the hell?" He yelled.

"Sorry 'bout that…I thought I was gonna be late…" Kel replied to Connor's outburst.

"Well, I'd rather be tackled, than be late for the only way into the military…" Connor murmured.

"Outta my way bitches!" Came a sudden call from behind, as Connor and Kel where shoved aside by someone dressed in a white cloak, decorated with red stripes, like the ones from "Assassin's creed". He carried various blades and guns on his side, and couldn't have been more than 19 years old…and so far, hadn't proved to be very nice.

"Hey what the hell is your problem man?" yelled Connor from behind. The assassin turned around to face him.

"Just because you're all dressed up and think you look cool, doesn't give you the right to push people out of the way. Dumbass."

"Alright then, you go on believing that…" he replied in that "jerk sort of tone", and kept pushing his way through the crowd.

"You're a douche bag, you know that?" Connor said.

"Yeah, you really put the "ass" in assassin!" Kel mocked and started laughing.

"Kel, shut up, that wasn't even that funny."

"Hey, I don't see you making any puns…" Kel replied.

That's when the assassin turned around and ran towards them.

"Oh shit, I think we made him angry!" Connor said quickly.

"Yep…" said Kel, before being kicked in the stomach, flying halfway across the room, and getting winded against a wall. By that point, Connor had already drawn his DMR, and was ready to fire, but he didn't see the assassin anywhere. Suddenly, something landed on his back, and he was stomped to the floor.

"Dammit!" he yelled, as the assassin crushed his ribcage under his weight. Final, he stepped off Connor, and walked away. Over on the other side of the room, Kel woke up.

"Daaammit!" He screamed, "He broke my IPod!"

Kel stared off in the direction where the assassin went, "Ok…now I'm gonna go kill him…" he said and drew two black steel gutting blades.

"No don't," Connor spoke slowly, "We'll get him in the training arena…and both of us are gonna get our revenge…"

After what felt like hours, a uniformed soldier came in and spoke to everyone about what was going to happen. He talked about the training simulations, and the basic martial arts training they were about to be put through. But there was one thing that he didn't tell them. If they managed to make it through the entire set of training and simulations, they would have to face either Master Chief or Samus…which clearly, at this point, was not something to be telling them…

They we're all led into one small room with many doors in it. All the different doors were labeled with things like: Shooting range, CQC, Fighting arts, etc. All the newcomers were escorted the CQC room first, and were given a briefing on what was happening.

"Alright men," the uniformed soldier spoke, "The letters "CQC" stand for Close Quarters Combat, so by this point, you should all know what fighting style your being trained with first."

There were a few whispers and murmurs from the crowd.

"There will be many different CQC training simulations," he went on, "Martial arts fighting, assassinations, how well you handle CQC weapons, and a few more. Once you are inside, the door will be shut and locked for security reasons, and if you came with one or more people, then you will be split off into a group with just you and your team, but you must tell one of the trainers you are with a team, otherwise you won't be in a group together."

The soldier turned and typed in a code on the door panel, and it quickly slide open and disappeared into the wall. It was very dark inside, but as soon as the first recruit took their first cautious step inside, every light in the room flared and sparked to life. At first, almost everyone there was blinded by the light, but eventually, their eyes began to adjust. Standing there in the middle of the room were three soldiers, the ones that were supposed to assign everyone into their own groups. Immediately, being as anxious as they were to get their training started, Kel and Connor ran towards the first solider, and told him they were there together. The soldier then escorted them to their first station. Assassinations.

The next room they were brought to was filled with obstacles, high platforms, and a lot of drones for practice assassinations.

"Alright you two," the soldier began, "Your training will start with practice assassinations, or as I've heard teenagers call it 'Ninja skill'."

The soldier smiled then went on, "You two can go ahead and start where ever you feel confortable, we will be monitoring you from up above."

About 20 feet above them, there was an enclosed room with angled, reinforced windows covering it. Kel looked up, and was pleasantly surprised to see that Samus was standing there along with Master Chief and a few other soldiers. She looked back and smiled sweetly, which boosted his confidence by an incredible amount.

"We better not screw this up…" Connor began, "The Chief and Samus are watching."

"So I've noticed…" Kel responded quietly, and together, they ran towards the nearest barrier, waiting for the right moment to attack.


	8. Chapter 8

**Fusion**

**Chapter 8**

Kel stood there with his blade, waiting for the signal from Connor to attack. Connor held his DMR in one hand, and the other hand was raised up in the air. After what felt like forever, Connor closed his hand into a fist and swiftly brought his arm down…the signal to engage. Suddenly, Kel stabbed the wall, and started to use his knife like a climbing tool. As he scaled the wall, Connor front flipped off to the side and behind another barrier. By that point, Kel was already perched on top of the 10 foot high barrier, like an owl waiting for its prey. As a way of diverting the training bot, Connor revealed himself, and then fired a few shots. A few of the shots went right through the robot, then it quickly turned around, brought out an arm cannon, and fired a missile straight back at him.

"Holy-!" he screamed as the missile slammed into the wall and exploded in a shower of fire and shrapnel. Meanwhile, Kel was running along the top of the barrier, the robot completely oblivious to his presence. As Connor drew his rifle and fired some more shots, Kel jumped off the barrier, did a side flip, and landed his blade right on top of the bot's head. The knife went straight through its thin steel skull, and penetrated the robot's computerized nervous system. The training bot buckled, then fell face first to the floor.

"Hell yeah!" Connor yelled.

"Fist pound for teamwork." Kel said while holding out his fist. Connor returned the gesture by pounding Kel's fist with his own.

"We should do that again." Connor said with a devious smile on his face.

"You know, I think that's an awesome idea…" Kel replied, then immediately they ran to next few barriers and waited once again to attack.

"I can't believe they just did that…" The Chief said quietly, "their skill is so much more than I expected…"

"I told you they would do it." Samus replied with a little smile on her face.

"Well let's see how they do in these next few assassinations…" the Chief said, sounding almost eager to watch the two boys in action once again.

This time, the two teenagers hid behind a barrier, but neither of them climbed the wall. Instead Connor passed a small glowing object to Kel that caused him to turn invisible. The next thing they knew, a knife came out of nowhere and sliced straight through the robot's head. As the training bot fell to the ground, Kel reappeared behind it.

"Just _how_ did they get their hands on an "Active camo" armor ability?" The Chief asked, sounding quite surprised.

"I told you they'd be good…you never know what these boys will do next…" Samus replied.

The next few assassinations were just as good as the first few. One time Connor actually tackled the 7 foot training bot, then Kel passed him one of his knives, and Connor pushed the blade straight through the face of the emotionless robot. Then when there were only 2 left, a crazy idea made its way into Connor's mind.

"Do you mind if take these two?"

"Go right ahead…" Kel responded quietly.

As silent as the shadows, Connor snuck up behind one robot, took hold of its head and literally twisted it off. Then, taking the head and throwing it at the second robot and impaling its body.

"Just how in hell did he know the robot's weak points?" exclaimed Samus.

"You did say they were good…" The Chief said quietly.

"I know but….I didn't expect that."

"Well, you gotta expect the unexpected."

The next few hours of training went just as smoothly as the beginning. Kel decided not to tell anyone he was a 2nd kyu brown belt, and literally owned everyone there. Connor aced his target practice, and sniping was like child's play to those two. Unfortunately, they had to be taken out of the CQC training arena, as they nearly killed 7 of the other people there. Hours later, as the day was coming to an end, the Admiral, Lord Hood, the Chief and Samus were trying to decide who to take.

"The two of them are really good together; they work as a team and are able to take on pretty much anything. I like them." Samus said.

"Almost anything…" The Chief muttered under his breath.

"That's true, but Jim is also extremely good with the assassinations and close combat fighting." The admiral stated. Jim was the name of the assassin the two boys had encountered earlier.

"That's true, but I really hate his attitude…he seems to think that he's better than everyone else, and can take on anything." Samus responded.

"I do agree, we should probably rethink using him…Because from what Samus told me, the other two are really nice, and follow orders without question. That's a good trait to have." The Chief said.

"We'll see. But first…they have to fight." Said the admiral.

"What?" exclaimed Samus. "You mean those two and the assassin?"

"No, not the two of them…just one." Lord Hood replied in a very serious tone.

"But they'll totally kill each other!" The Chief said in protest.

"That's the point…" Lord Hood wore a bored expression.

It took a moment for the Lord Hood's words to sink in.

"I know we should have told you earlier, but if we did, we figured you would favor one over the other, and make it so it was impossible for them to pass the tests…so they wouldn't have to fight...now if you'll excuse me, I have some new recruits to inform." Lord Hood said, and left the room almost immediately.

There were only 3 people left in the training arena. Connor, Kel and Jim.

"Ok, I don't know how you two losers are still here…but you're going down." Jim said insultingly.

"Why don't you shut up before I staple your mouth shut…" Kel replied in a pissed off tone.

"You? Make me shut up? Ha! As if!" Jim yelled mockingly.

"You're a bitch!" Connor spat.

"You're a lame virgin teenager that has issues." Jim shot back.

"Oh! That is so it!" Connor screamed, then ran and tackled the assassin. Kel pulled out one of his knives, then ran and joined him. Connor already had him pinned down and was beating on him when Kel got over to them. Immediately, Kel jumped on the two of them, and was ready to drive that blade straight through the assassin's face when a voice called "Stop!" from behind them. Kel froze and looked back. There he saw Lord Hood standing with an unimpressed expression on his face.

"Get off of Jim you two." He said with steel in his voice.

"Aww come on! We just got to this point! And we may never get this far again!" Connor protested. "Can I just punch him just once more?"

"Get off of him…now…"

"Yes sir…" Connor replied.

They all stood up, and Jim back handed Kel in the face, who fell backwards and hit the ground hard.

"Oh that is it!" Connor yelled, and then tackled the assassin like a football player.

"Enough! All of you!" Lord Hood yelled.

"He back handed my friend in the face!" Connor yelled back. "What do you expect me to do, just _stand_ there?"

Hood stayed silent. "Just stop with the fighting. Now. And Jim…_don't _do that again."

"Yes sir…" Jim replied hastily and stood back up.

"Lay that hand on my friend again, and you won't get it back…" Connor whispered angrily to Jim.

"Now I have some…unexpected news for the three of you…" the commanding officer lied, "Since the three of you tied, and Samus and the chief can only take two of you…you'll have to fight."  
"Wait…what?" Kel replied, still processing what Lord Hood had just said.

"Sir…" Jim began, "the complexities of your pranks escape me…"

"He probably doesn't even know what half of those words were…" Connor whispered, and Kel snickered. The assassin shot them both a dirty look.

"This is no prank Jim, you and one of them will fight."

"Alright then…In that case, I'll pwn these two, then fly off into space with Samus." Jim said confidently.

"Jim, I'm not sure you heard me correctly…you will fight _one_ of them…which means if you do beat him, you'll be partnered with the other."

Jim groaned, and rolled his eyes.

"Sir, if one of us losses, we both lose…in other words, we won't go without each other..." Kel said.

"How sweet." Jim said rudely.

"Shut up! You don't even know how to spell that!" Kel spat.

"At least I don't cry myself to sleep every night!" Jim shot.  
"Hey! I have a good reason for it!" Kel yelled.

"Quiet you two!" yelled Lord Hood. "Now I'm going to leave you for a moment while you two decide who will fight…" he said and walked away.

Connor and Kel just stood there for a moment, letting Lord Hood's words sink in.

"I'll fight him…" Kel began.

"Wait, what?" Connor cut him off. "Ok, I know you have hand to hand combat training, but you'll totally kill each other!"

"I'll be fine…you'll see…" Kel said quietly, then headed for Lord Hood.

"…I don't like this…" Connor murmured. "Pitting those two against each other not a good idea…"


	9. Chapter 9

**Fusion**

**Chapter 9**

Kel and Jim were both lead into a massive training room filled with obstacles, barriers and what-not. Clearly, this was not going to be an ordinary battle.

As soon as Jim walked in he said, "Man, this place is badass!"

He stared at Kel who just looked back with a blank stare.

"The hell are you lookin' at?" Kel said quietly.

"Oh me? I'm just taking one last good look at your face before it gets smashed in…" Jim said with a cruel smile.

"Don't get your hopes up…you won't lay finger on me more then, oh I'd say about 4 times…" Kel replied.

Jim smirked, and then walked towards the center of the room. Kel noticed about a hundred meters away; there was a small room that resembled what might look like a pill box made of glass. Inside he saw the Admiral, Lord Hood, the Chief, Samus and Connor all watching, waiting for the first attack to come. Lord Hood spoke into some kind of microphone, then immediately his voice came from all around them.

"I have just started a timer set for one minute, as soon as it reaches zero the fight will start. You are free to use any methods necessary to defeat your opponent. And since this is a fight to the death, guns, blades and various weapons will be aloud."

As in response to his statement, Jim drew a hidden blade and a magnum, and smiled grimly. Kel just simply let his gutting blades fall from his sleeves into his hands. He looked over at Connor who just slowly shook his head in disapproval. Kel put his blades away…Besides he doesn't need a weapon to kill someone…A buzzer sounded. The signal to start.

"Think fast cupcake!" Jim yelled, and then flung a throwing knife at Kel.

Kel bent back so far that he pretty much formed a bridge without touching the ground with his hands. The steel blade flew harmlessly over him. Quickly, Kel came back up, and bolted towards the assassin. Almost impressed, Jim drew a magnum and fired. Kel jumped forward, and spun around like a drill at high speed, somehow dodging the bullet that was just fired. Kel hit the ground hard, did a double summer-salt then regained his balance and kept sprinting towards his foe.

"Holy hell!" Jim yelled as Kel rammed into him, and pinned him onto the floor. Jim bent back, and with both feet, and kicked Kel off of him, who went flying over ten feet away. Kel landed hard on his tailbone and yelped in pain. He stood up, and pulled out his hunting blade instead of his two gutting blades. Then he ran towards Jim who took out two heavy pistols and fired. Kel bent back and slide on his knees; letting the two shots fly above him, then stood back up and once again and ran towards the assassin.

"You just don't know when to give up do you?" Jim yelled, hiding his fear.

"I am a slow learner!" Kel yelled back then slashed at Jim, splitting his arm open.

Jim screamed in pain, and sucker punched Kel in the stomach, then kicked him hard and sent him flying. Kel hit a metal barrier about 8 feet away. Jim was on the ground now, furiously trying to wrap up his wound in the little time that he had. Seeing his distraction, Kel stabbed the wall, then climbed up and stood on top of the 12 foot barrier, then started to run along the side like a cat.

"Clever boy…" Samus whispered.

Eventually Jim stood up and looked around.

"What the hell? Where'd that son of a bitch go?" Jim yelled.

Panicking, he drew his two hidden blades, backed up against a barrier and began scanning the room for his missing opponent. Fortunately, he never considered the fact that Kel could be right above him. Just like in the training, Kel perched himself directly above his target. He put away his blade, then side flipped off the barrier without a sound. He landed right on top of Jim, then double knife handed his temples, but not hard enough to knock him out. Jim staggered, stunned, then Kel ran spun around sideways, then flipped over and landed a spinning kick on Jim, who fell straight to the ground. Jim tried to get up, but Kel stepped on him, and kicked away his weapons before he had a chance to do anything.

"Go to hell…" Jim said through clenched teeth.

"I can't, I'm Christian." Kel replied with a smile on his face.

"It's over Lord Hood, I won." Kel began; looking towards the glass box and gesturing to Jim's defeated form.

"Son, I think you misunderstood me, to win you must kill your opponent." Lord Hood replied.

"A true hero doesn't kill his allies…" Kel said, then took his foot off of Jim, and started towards the exit door.

Lord Hood greeted him when he came back into the sheltered box.

"You did well son..."

"Thank you sir."

"Now as for you…" Lord Hood said, turning to Connor, "I think it's your turn to do some "advanced" training…"

"Oh god…" Connor said nervously.

The next thing they knew, they were being led into a massive steel platted room, with what appeared to be cannons sticking out of one wall. The entire room was very long; it had to be at least 200 x 50 meters. Off to the side, there was another glass box just like in the other room. This time Connor was left outside of the box, and waited for further instructions.

Lord Hood stepped up to the mike and spoke into it.

"Alright, what we've selected for is you is an evasiveness test. Basically what will happen is we'll fire a few shot at you, and you'll have to dodge them." Lord Hood explained.

"Wait, wait back up! Did you say shots? Like bullet shots? How the hell am I supposed to dodge those?" Connor protested.

"What? No! Of course not!" Lord Hood replied. "We'll fire a few missiles instead, their much easier to dodge."

"God dammit…" Connor muttered under his breath. "All right, let's do this!"

As soon as he finished, the first missile fired.

"Come on Connor!" Kel yelled into the mike. "If I can dodge bullets, you can dodge missiles!"

His confidence now boosted, he jumped straight for the oncoming explosive, and let it sail directly below him. He landed, and did a summer-salt, then stood back up. The next one came straight for his head. In a split second, he bent back a far as he could and just narrowly dodged the projectile. Next thing he knew, three missiles all at once were shot from the wall. He barely had any time to react. But when he did, he jumped at the middle one, grabbed the shell, and pushed it behind him on an angle…sending it straight into one of the other ones, and exploding. The last missile unexpectedly curved and came right back at him.

"What the hell?" He yelled and jumped sideways, the missile missing him by an inch.

"No one told me they were heat seeking!" He yelled angrily.

"It's all part of the test." Lord Hood replied.

The next thing he knew, about nine or ten missiles were shot all at once.

"Holy shit!" Connor screamed. Inside the control room, Lord Hood and Admiral Dane scrambled over to the control panel, and began furiously working away at the buttons and levers, trying to stop all the missiles.

"No, no, no! This isn't right! There should never be that many missiles on the field! Something's gone wrong, and I can't override the controls!" the Admiral yelled.

The missiles impacted and Connor was swallowed in a cloud of smoke. Everyone except for Kel gasped, and ran outside. There was smoke clouding a good half of the room and it was impossible to see clearly. Lord Hood and the Admiral both brought out some sort of scanner/motion tracker, and began scanning the room for life. Both failed to bring anything up. Lord Hood then turned to Kel.

"Son, I'm not sure how to tell you this…but I think your best friend has just been killed…I'm sorry."

Kel turned and stared at the gaseous smoke cloud.

"No, he's alive alright…" he replied. As if in response to his statement, Connor walked out of the smoke completely untouched.

"…Just how the hell did you survive that?" Lord Hood asked anxiously.

"That's sort of a secret…"

"Please tell us. We would like know…" said the Admiral.

"Uh…he can't." Kel began. "It's a secret."

"Teenagers…" Mumbled Lord Hood under his breath.

"So uh, anyway…" Connor began, "what…the hell…happened? You could've killed me!"

"It wasn't our doing…" The Admiral replied, "The system mal-functioned. But that's what's scaring me. You see, the control panels that contain all the wiring to the missile launchers are heavily guarded and well armored. Not only is no one aloud in there, but there is an air-tight steel door 12 inches thick blocking the panels. I think we'd better check it out…"

They headed towards the steel door to exit the room, but unfortunately, because too many missiles were fired at once, the door was literally welded shut.

"Ok, stand back…" Said Connor while removing what appeared to be a small bomb from his left pocket.

"What? Where did you find that explosive?" Asked Lord Hood.

"Uhhhh…I found it." Connor replied while placing the explosive on the door and pressing the "arm" button.

"Move!" yelled Connor, as he and Kel did a tuck and roll out of the way. The rest of the group ran for cover.

For such a small bomb, it had quite a massive effect since the door was literally ripped in half, and both pieces were sent flying off to the sides.

The group made their way through the shattered door frame and into the gun-metal gray corridor.

"This way." Said the Admiral, leading the down a dark hallway to what was supposed to be a closed steel door. The door was practically ripped from its hinges, and the frame was badly dented.

"Something's been here…" Said the Chief.

"Why do you say something," Asked Kel, "And not someone?"

"Because," the Chief went on, "look at the stress marks on the hinges here. It suggests that the door was physically pulled out of them…and not even I have the strength to rip this door out…"

Almost as in response to his statement, are sharp glow of bluish-white began to generate pretty much out of thin air, until it formed a sharp sword.

At the very last possible second, Samus, the Chief and the two boys realized what it was, and immediately dived to save the commanding officers from being split in half.

"It's a cloaked elite!" Yelled the Samus, "Me and the Chief can handle this, the rest of you get out of here!"

"There's no way in hell we're leaving now!" said Connor while unclipping his rifle. The Admiral and Lord Hood were already out the door.

Samus dodged a swipe from the elite's sword. "We can't risk losing you two! You have to go."

Connor smiled and looked at Kel. "Well, we've always been the stubborn ones."

"Yeah, I mean since when have we ever ran from a fight?" Kel replied.

Feeling that Samus and the Chief were getting in their way, Kel gave Connor a nod, and with that, Connor grabbed Samus and the Chief from behind and literally threw them out the door. The Chief was a lot heavier than he looked…it must've been his armor. Right after they were flung out the door, Connor threw a barrier generator to the ground, preventing anyone from leaving, or entering the room. It was just the boys and the elite.

"Finally, no more distractions…" Kel said with an evil grin on his face. But truthfully, he didn't mind being distracted if it was just Samus. She did have beautiful eyes after all.

"Time to have some fun." Connor said while cracking his knuckles with a smile on his face.

The elite stood there grasping its sword even tighter than before. It wasn't going to engage unless fired on first, so to speak. Then Connor made a move, swinging his DMR violently at the jawed alien. The elite jumped back just enough to dodge the swing, and then lunged towards Connor. Kel knew what he had to do. He jumped at the elite when it was in the middle of lunging, and caught it off balance, tackling it to the ground. He then whipped out one of his gutting blades, and went to stab the alien in the mouth. Unfortunately for Kel, the elite swiped the blade right out of his hand before he was able to put the knife through the elite's throat. The alien then threw Kel off and jumped back up, but this time it wanted payback. It lunged for Kel, who was helpless to defend himself because he was on the ground.

"Oh no you don't!" yelled Connor while climbing up the elite's back. He then grasped the front of the elite's head with one hand, and then took the back of its head with the other. With all his speed and power, he quickly twisted the elite's head, snapping its neck.

The elite fell to the floor and its sword deactivated.

"Covenant bastard…" Connor said under his breath.

"Nice assassination." Said Kel while holding his fist out for a fist pound.

"Thanks." Connor replied while returning the gesture.

Connor then deactivated the shield, then the two headed out the door.


	10. Chapter 10

**Fusion**

**Chapter 10**

"What were you two thinking?" Said Lord Hood angrily. "You could've been killed!"

"Yeah?" Said Connor, "Well….here we are!"

"It doesn't matter. The fact is that you _could've_ been killed, even though you weren't. Another part of what you did disturbed me because it shows us that you won't always follow orders. And we _cannot_ have that…"

The boys nodded unhappily.

"Dismissed." Declared Lord Hood. He then turned and walked out through a dark doorway, followed by the Chief and the Admiral.

Kel looked at the floor. "I'm sorry…"

Connor slapped him upside the head. "No you're not."

"Ow." Kel said tiredly. He looked at his phone. "Holy hell, its 11:00. No wonder I feel so sleepy…"

"These training days seem to take forever, but once they're done, it's like you don't even know where the time went…" Said Samus.

"Heh, sounds like school…" Connor remarked.

Kel snickered. "I hear that…" They headed out the door, and started towards the living quarters.

"You two don't mind if I walk with you to your dorm do you?" Samus asked.

"Nope."

"Not at all. I mean we're pretty much friends already, so why not?" Said Kel.

They arrived at the steel door that blocked the entrance to the pre-heated dorm. All the dorms were like this. Pre-heated, fitted with small bedrooms, bathrooms with working showers, and free Wi-Fi and internet. They were like your homes away from home.

Kel stepped in, but Connor stayed out.

"You're not going to bed?" Asked Samus, confused.

"Nah, I'm too awake to go to bed. Do you know where the gym is?" Connor asked anxiously.

"Here, I'll show you…" Samus said while looking back. "Good night." She said with a sweet smile.

"Good night." Kel replied. He fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.

Samus led Connor down, yet another narrow hallway, which there seemed to be a lot of in this building. The hallway seemed to stretch on forever. This gave her the perfect chance to ask him the question that she'd been wondering ever since she saw them in the waiting room.

"So…why'd you two decide to join the force?" She asked, clearly curious. "Did it have anything to do with….you know what, never mind…"

"Wait, what?" Connor asked.

"Here's the gym." She said, ignoring his question.

"No, seriously, what were you talking about?"

"Oh, you'll find out soon enough…" She replied, almost amused by his curiosity.

The vast gym stretched out before them. It was at least 200 meters across and maybe about 100 meters wide. It was packed wall to wall with all the equipment a person could possibly need to get ripped. From bar bells to aerobic machines and exercises, they had everything you could ever want to work out.

"Ooh..." Connor said excitedly.

"The best part is, it's all yours."

"What?" He couldn't believe his ears.

"Yeah that's right. All yours. No one ever comes around here this time of night."

"Hell yes…" Connor said pulsing with excitement, and went off to work out.

He worked out for three hours. Three hours. He went and worked out on every machine in that room until 1:00 in the morning, and I don't know how someone does that.

Finally, he got the feeling that he should take a break from all this. And that's exactly what he did. He went and laid down on a bench and shut his eyes for a few minutes. After a little while, he started to feel as though something was moving, or crawling across his face. He then opened his eyes, and saw a familiar face.

"Chelsea?" He said in disbelief. He couldn't exactly figure out what was going on, or how she had gotten into the base, but he didn't care. Her presence was after all, quite relaxing.

_It __must__ be a dream…_he thought. But it soon became clear that it wasn't. She was really there. But how? With all the security, and air tight sealing, there was no way she could get in. But he didn't care. All he knew is that the girl that he'd always loved was there with him. And nothing was more important to him. But he still couldn't figure out how she got there, so he decided to ask.

He stood up, hugged her gently, and asked, "How did you get here?"

She was just about to answer, but a split second before the words came out, the alarm sounded.

They were under attack.

"What the fu- What's going on?" Connor asked, startled.

"We're under attack…" Chelsea said grimly.

Back in their room, Kel was fast asleep, dreaming the same creepy nightmare that he had in the motel. Only worse. The girl with blue hair was still there, but this time she raised her head.

If only she didn't…

Her eyes were red. Blood red. And just the look of them terrified him to the point of becoming paralyzed.

He couldn't move. He was completely frozen by terror. Normally red eyes were something that he thought looked really pretty on girls, but for whatever reason, right now they seemed to suck all of the courage right out of him. And replace it with pure, raw fear.

She reached out, and gently placed a hand on him. He expected it to be cold, but it wasn't. It was quite the opposite. Suddenly his vision flashed, and he felt more relaxed than he ever had in his entire life. It was as if all of his troubles were just washed away. Then he woke up.

Samus shook him until he was completely awake.  
"Wh- what? What the hell is going on?" he asked feeling exhausted.

"We're under attack! The space pirates and the covenant have launched a coordinated attack on the base! We gotta move!" Samus replied, practically dragging Kel out the door with her.

"Wait!" Kel protested, now more awake. "I need my weapons!"

He quickly ran to the bedside table and snatched his spiker, his knives and as many clips as he could hold. Then he bolted out the door after Samus.

There were drop ships everywhere. Phantoms, Spirits, Space pirate drop ships and assault ships were literally blocking out the moon light. They were like an angry swarm of Japanese wasps. Only worse.

They loomed silently over the base like an owl about to attack. Antennae picked up the ship's signals, and immediately sent response beacons to the outside turrets. About eighteen mounted turrets turned, and began to rapidly fire steel slugs at the incoming ships. They hit a few, and brought them down pretty quickly. Unfortunately, the rest of the ships retaliated.

The ships literally created a wall of shots. It was nothing but a massive wave of dark beam and energy mixed into one giant death cloud. Every single turret was completely obliterated, and the defense walls were severely damaged, exposing little wire bits and thin steel pillars that were used in creating the foundation of the building itself. The ships advanced.

Luckily, a couple hundred marines rushed out the steel blast doors and attacked the ships before they could do much more damage. Unfortunately, not many of them had rocket launchers, so not many ships were brought down before most of the troops were wiped out. But then, about seven or eight scorpions exited the building just as the ships were getting ready to move in. It was their turn to return fire. They fired their main cannons and brought down at least twenty eight or twenty nine drops ships before the tanks were destroyed as well. Even though about half of the ships were annihilated by that point, there were still hundreds upon thousands of space pirate and covenant troops left to be dealt with.

The ships began to land, and deployed the troops who were docked inside. Each Phantom and Spirit each carried about 20 grunts, 8 jackals and 2 elites inside them. As if the covenant wasn't bad enough, the space pirate drop ships would carry about 8 space pirates and 2 commandos inside them as well, and on top of all that, each drop ship had enough fire power to destroy at least one tank each. It was complete, uncontrollable madness.

Finally, Connor, Chelsea, Kel, Samus and the Chief came rushing through what was left of the blast doors, and took cover behind a wrecked drop ship that had landed pretty close to the base.

Just in time to see the devastation.

"Ok, just how the hell are we supposed to beat that?" Kel said, already feeling defeated.

"Don't worry, we'll figure something out…" The Chief replied.

"Yeah, come on. Don't lose all your hope just yet. Remember: we overcome anything with this many allies..." Connor said, not feeling too sure of himself either.

Kel glanced around and saw all the dead bodies of the soldiers lying across the battle field.

"By 'allies' are you counting dead and alive, or just alive?" Kel said sarcastically.

Connor gave him one of those "give me a break" looks. "Hey, no smartass remarks. Let's move!"

The two boys began to run, but the Chief grabbed them both by their shirt collars, and dragged them back behind cover.

"Not, so fast! You two can't just run out like that! You'll get obliterated." The Chief barked.

"Exactly. Besides, there's too many of them. We need some sort of diversion." Samus said, while peering through a hole in the ruined ship.

The ground troops were everywhere. Grunts, jackals and hunters were checking the marine bodies, making sure that they were dead, while brutes and elites along with a few space pirate commandos penetrated the base.

"But whatever we're gonna do, we gotta do it fast. They're already breaking in!" Samus said, a little worried.

"Don't worry, we got this…" Connor said with a little grin on his face. He looked over at Kel. "You know what to do…"

On Kel's back, there appeared to be two sharp steel rods, each one with a little orange light on them. He snatched one off his back, then pressed the orange button. Not only did the razor-sharp rod extend, but about 40 smaller spikes sprouted from the center.

"Ok, seriously, whats with that?" Samus said inquisitively.

"What? So I'm a freak just I like sharp things? Bite me." Kel replied, almost offended.

"Yeah, he has a thing for spikes and stuff like that…" Connor explained.

Kel peered around the corner of the downed ship, and spotted an elite, that in theory, would have been way too far for him to reach with a grenade. But he threw it anyway. There was a little popping sound, and the grenade was propelled an extra 30 feet through by little air jets.

"What the hell kind of grenade is that?" Chelsea asked.

"It's a custom model that we designed. It has these awesome mini air jets stuck inside of it that make it go farther if you had a bad throw, or if the enemy is too far away. Like so." Connor replied.

The grenade flew through the air about 50 feet away and stuck right through the elite's head, and detonated. The elite's skull was literally ripped in half and spikes flew in all directions, killing about 3 grunts 4 jackals and 2 space pirates. A startled brute spun around and began to shoot wildly, accidentally killing a few grunts. This was their chance.

"Move!" Connor yelled, and began to sprint through the field, with Kel close behind.

Connor took out his DMR and began to fire like a pro, getting head shots on all the jackals and grunts he fired at. He jumped and did a tuck n' roll, then he came up and literally blew the brains out of a space pirate that was unfortunate enough to be that close to him. Frightened, an elite ran up to attack Connor, with his back side turned to Kel who ran up from behind, jumped on the elite's back, and drove one of his blades through the top of the alien's head.

"Thanks…" Connor said.

"Just returning the favor…" Kel replied, grinning.

They both ran off in opposite directions, creating a diversion. Connor ran while shooting and avoiding the shots fired in return. This was going to be tough. He ran and ducked behind a piece of one of the shattered Spirits, and came up with the perfect plan. He unclipped the only flash grenade he had, and then threw it as hard as he could. It flew through the air…right above the heads of a space pirate squad. Using his precise aim, he shot the grenade while in mid-flight, blinding the pirates. Now stunned, startled and confused, the pirates began to run around firing off random shots, hoping to kill whatever it was that blinded them. Unfortunately for them, the only things they managed to kill were themselves, each other and a few of the elites and brutes.

"Ha! Take that you pillaging bastards!" Connor shouted from behind cover.

All the way on the other side of the battle field, Kel was killing as many as he could before he would bolt. It wasn't as easy as anyone would think either. But he was managing.

A heavy weapons grunt wielding a fuel rod canon was firing repeatedly at Kel, clearly frustrated by his lack of hits. Because of how slow fuel rods move at times, they weren't that difficult to dodge, but it was still pretty tricky. The last shot was finally used from the canon, and Kel jumped over it, while arching his back and twisting, almost forming a perfect semi-circle in mid-air. He flipped in the air and made a perfect landing on his feet, whipped out one of his knives, then ran towards the grunt that was now fleeing in terror. Right as he was about to get his kill, he was hit from the side with an incredibly powerful force. A brute. He flew about fifteen feet, then landed hard on the rough sand. Killing this guy would not be easy. He immediately got up, and pulled out one of his custom spike grenades. He activated it, and then threw it with all his might. It stuck hard in the brute, but it didn't detonate. _Dammit! _He thought to himself. _It must have shorted out! What now? _Immediately, an idea sprouted from his mind. It was very risky, but if he didn't want to get pounded to the ground by an angry brute, he would have to do it. He ran towards the brute, and jumped right on him. He grabbed the spike grenade that was stuck in the alien's shoulder, and ripped it right out. The brute howled in pain, but then spun around and back-handed Kel in the face. He yelped in pain and flew back a few feet before landing on the cement road that was nearby. Now angered by the brute's resistance, he stood up, spun the spiked explosive around in his hand, then sprinted towards the gorilla-like alien. He leaped into the air and drove the grenade right through the brute's chest, then he back flipped away, took out his spiker, then shot the grenade. The brute was torn right in half.

"Ugh…I'm not doing that again…" Kel said, disgusted by what he just did. He figured that he had created enough of a diversion by point, and dashed back to cover, where Chelsea, the Chief and Samus were waiting.


	11. Chapter 11

**Fusion**

**Chapter 11**

Connor was finished with the diversion, and was in the middle of running back to cover, when something erupted behind him and he was sent flying.

"Gah! What the hell?" He screamed. He landed hard on the road nearby and the wind was knocked out of him. He looked up. It was a hunter. _Ah hell…_ he thought to himself. _These things are a bitch to kill…_ He rose to his feet, and waited for the hunter to get close enough. When it did, it swung its massive shield arm at Connor, who sprung up, and latched onto its arm. Frustrated, the hunter flailed its arm, attempting to fling off the determined teenager, but with little success. Connor climbed as fast as he could, going up its oversized arm and onto its back. There wasn't much the hunter could do now. Connor stuck his DMR right into the hunter's back and fired at least 11 times. By that point, the hunter had had enough, it was in pain and no matter what it did, the pesky human would not come off. So the hunter decided to fall on its back in order to get rid of Connor. Connor started to feel the alien tipping back, and he realized what was about to happen.

"Oh hell!" He screamed before leaping off of the hunter. Fortunately, the hunter kept falling, and it landed hard on its back. This was his chance. Connor snatched a plasma grenade off the ground, and then stuck it to the hunter's head plate. When it blew up, orange blood shot everywhere.

"Ok that's sick…but awesome." Connor murmured. He then spun around and dashed for cover with the rest of the guys.

"Nice diversion." Samus commented, keeping her eyes on the battle field. "Now that they're startled and confused, we'll be able to take them out easier."

The Chief reached for a nearby fallen soldier's sniper rifle. Only two clips left, so he would have to make these ones count.

"Ooh! A sniper rifle! Let me see that…" Connor, said while snatching the rifle from the Spartan's hands.

"Hey, what do you think you're doing?" The Chief said angrily. Connor shot immediately, getting three headshots on a few grunts with one bullet. The next three bullets in the clip were used to skillfully bring down a hunter.

"Wow…now even that I haven't seen him do before…" Kel whispered.

"That was quite…impressive." The Chief remarked, actually impressed by what someone else did for once.

"Thanks, but I'm not done yet. There's still a whole other clip left in this thing…"

He then spotted a space pirate commando off in the distance.

"Oh, you're mine…" Connor murmured with a grin on his face. He shot twice, but all he managed to do was anger the pirate. The commandos did after all, have incredibly durable armor.

"Frick…" Connor said under his breath.

"What? What did you do?" Kel asked.

"Nothing, nothing…this pirate is just…really strong. That's all."

"Please don't tell me you shot at a commando…"

"Well, let's say that hypothetically I did…"

"Ugh…Connor, you need at least two full clips to take out a pirate commando! What were you thinking?"

"I don't know, I thought if I got a few headshots on that thing, that I'd kill it."

Unfortunately, the pirate saw where the shots came from. And he was not happy about it. The pirate extended its battle blades and sprinted towards the suspected cover area of the sniper. 

"Shit, he's coming for us!" Connor yelled, and fired the last two shots from the clip. It went straight through the arms of the pirate, but did little damage.

"Dammit! What now?" Connor exclaimed.

Just then, a few rapid shots of phazon were fired from over head, taking out the pirate's heavy armor.

"Now!" the Chief shouted. Kel took out his last armed spike grenade, and threw it. It stuck right in the pirate's chest, and just like all the other victims of this ferocious grenade, it split in half.

"Good job." The Chief commented.

"Thanks…" Kel replied, "But, who shot that phazon?"

"First of all, how did you even know that was phazon?" the Chief asked.

In reality, Connor and Kel had both known about phazon, the pirates and the covenant before they had even arrived at the base. But before Kel could reply, a voice came from overhead.

"That was me."

It was Jim. And he was equipped with a Phazon Enhancement Device.

"Oh…hello…Jim." Kel said, with the same voice that Jerry Seinfeld would greet Newman with.

"Yeah. It's me. Oh, and you're welcome for saving your guy's asses." Jim replied with a smirk on his face.

"But- wait…if you hate me, then why would you save not only me, but my friends too?"

"I wasn't saving _you _twinkie; I just couldn't bear to see this beauty get hurt." He said while gesturing to Samus, who just rolled her eyes.

"Suck up…" Murmured Connor.

"What was that dipstick?" Jim shot.

"Wouldn't you like to know…"

"Guys, guys, let's not start anything, ok? We're still in the middle of a battle field!" Chelsea stated.

"She's right. We gotta keep fighting!" Connor said in response to her statement.

"And at what cost?" Kel whispered, "Look at whats out there…we can't hope to kill them all…"

His point was made clear when they looked back out towards the field. There were hundreds of covenant troops and space pirates everywhere. Sure they had done a good job startling and confusing them, but what they had managed to kill was insignificant compared to what was left. There was no way that they could win. They only had one option. Retreat.

"I hate to say it, but he's right. We need to fall back." The Chief said grimly.

"We can take cover in the mountains. There's an old outpost up there that we can use." Samus said, looking uneasy.

"Ok, good. Let's move. But be quiet. We don't need any more unwanted attention..." the Chief said, and began to stealthily walk along the edge of the base walls, followed by Connor, Chelsea and Jim. But Kel just stood there.

"Come on, we need to move." Samus said quietly.

"I don't want to do this…" Kel whispered.

"What? What are you talking about?" Samus said, trying her best to keep a quiet tone.

"We're just abandoning the base...and there's still soldiers trapped inside…" he replied, feeling remorseful.

Samus gently wrapped arm around him, partly to get him to move, and partly to comfort him.

"Look at whats out there. Do you really want to fight that? You even said it yourself. There's no way we can win. There really is too many of them."

"But...you and the Chief have both faced things like this before and came out fine…"

"Yeah, but nothing this big, there's hundreds upon thousands of them out there…even if it was in our power to take care of it, we wouldn't be able to. We have you guys with us, and we couldn't risk losing you."

"I'm sure we could handle ourselves…" Kel replied with a little smile.

"Come on, we gotta catch up."

They quietly made their way around to the back of the massive base to see if any vehicles were left. Almost every single vehicle in the back was either destroyed, or already taken, so there wasn't much of a choice. But down at the far corner of the base, the was steel door that was partly ripped open from the blast of what was probably a plasma grenade. Inside, there was a prototype vehicle. Its name was Wolverine. It was an enormous vehicle with two front wheels and treads in the back. It was heavily armored and looked like it could drive right through a wraith, and on top of it were two massive rocket launchers along with a gauss hog turret mounted right beside the driver's seat.

"That is one bitchin' tank" Jim said with a grin on his face.

Samus turned to the Chief, "We can't use _that_. It's still a prototype."

"It's all we have," the Chief replied, "We're gonna have to take that chance if we wanna get out of here…"

There was no point in arguing, because Connor, Chelsea, Kel and Jim were already climbing in.

"I call shotgun!" Kel exclaimed.

"I'm driving!" Connor shouted.

"Oh no you're not!" Jim said while jumping for the seat and tackling Connor.

Samus turned back the Chief, "You know what? I think you're right…we'll need all the help we can get."

By that point, Connor and Jim had both fallen off, and were now wrestling on the ground for the driver's seat. Kel saw what was happening, and decided to help.

He stood up on the vehicle, then front flipped, and angled his elbow towards the ground.

"PILE DRIVER!" he shouted and dropped 10 feet from the tank to the ground and on top of Jim.

"Ah! God damn it!" Jim yelled in a mix of anger and pain. He rolled over, and kicked Kel away. "Respect your elders, twinkie."

"You know what Jim?" Kel shot angrily, "Why don't you just screw off and go back to your KKK buddies!" He said while gesturing to Jim's white cloak and hood.

Jim looked down at his outfit. "Oh, oh that is it!" he yelled and began to run towards Kel.

"Stop it! The point of being allies is that we don't fight each other!" the Chief shouted.

"Yeah, jeez Jim, get away from me." Kel taunted, while shoving Jim away.

"I'm still driving…" Connor said quite loudly, in an attempt to make Jim angry once again.

"Once again, shotgun!" Kel exclaimed.

"Ugh…something tells me that riding around with these guys is a bad idea…" the Chief murmured.

The rest of them climbed in with Connor at the driver's seat and Kel in the turret as planned.

"How do you even know you can drive this thing?" The Chief asked

"Don't worry; he's driven lots of things before…just…not something like this…" Kel said through an intercom. Because the turret had its own little room, no one would be able to hear anything the turret operator said, so there was an intercom welded inside, just in case.

"Hey, how did you do that?" Connor asked, wondering what other interesting features this vehicle offered.

"…I have no idea…" Kel replied, more interested in the gun than anything else.

Chelsea leaned in close, "Be careful, don't kill us…"

"Don't worry, I got this!" Connor said confidently, while stepping on the gas pedal which sent the tank flying in reverse and into the wall.

"Whoa!"

"Hey!"

"What the hell happened?"

"Hey, hey! It's not my fault, some idiot just labeled this wrong…" Connor said, while flipping the "forwards/backwards" label around.

"Ok, let's go." He stepped on the gas pedal, but this time he just hit the steel door that was half blown off.

"Frick! Not again!" Connor shouted.

"Why do you keep doing that?" Kel asked through the intercom.

"Well I'm sorry if someone forgot to open the gate all the way!" He shot back while glaring at Jim.

"Screw off, muscle head." Jim said blatantly.

"Whatever…" Connor murmured, brushing off the insult. He stepped on the pedal and drove the rest of the way through the wrecked gate, running over whatever was left of the steel door.

The vehicle sped off into the mid-night dark desert, and didn't stop until sunlight.


	12. Chapter 12

**Fusion**

**Chapter 12**

Earth date: 2011, November24th

Approximately 6:00 in the morning

The sun rose behind the dark early morning rain clouds, showing a sure sign of precipitation later in the day. The lone Wolverine sped through the rough, dry terrain, searching for any signs a friendly outpost. Connor and Kel stared out the back window with Chelsea, watching the desolate desert go by.

"As you can all see, the growing storm clouds in the area are a sure sign of rain later today…" Kel said, in his fake weather man voice.

"That's right Kel," Connor continued, "We may also experience thunder showers later in the day as well. And now we go over to Jim for 'Dick of the Day'…"

"In which case he would only be talking about himself…" Kel joined in. Kel, Connor and Chelsea all burst out laughing.

"That's real funny twinkie…" Jim grumbled.

"Really? Why thank you Jimmy, Connor and Chelsea seemed to think so as well." Kel replied with a smirk on his face.

Jim just rolled his eyes and turned away.

"Oh come on Jim, don't you like jokes?" Connor mocked.

Jim just sighed, and ignored them.

Kel made his way to the driver's seat, where Samus and the Chief had taken over.

"So…how much longer?" He asked inquisitively.

"Another hour or two at the most…why?" Samus replied.

"Oh, no reason…just curious…"

"I never thought I'd ever say this but, could you two stop picking on Jim for just a bit?" said the Chief. "It's starting to get on my nerves…"

"But he started it! He called us bitches, and broke my iPod!" Kel shot back.

"I doesn't matter who started it, or what they did…just don't escalate it. Whatever happened to forgive and forget?"

"I guess you have a point…" Kel said, feeling a little guilty. "I mean, how am I supposed to be better than those who bullied me in the past, if I'm doing the exact same thing?" 

"My point exactly. I don't mean stop it forever though…I will admit that some of the stuff you guys say is actually…pretty funny. But for now…just lay off a bit, will ya?" The Chief asked.

"Fine…" Kel agreed reluctantly.

As Kel began to walk to the back where Connor and Chelsea were, Jim shot another insult at him.

"Hey, emo boy! You still cry yourself to sleep at night?"

"Oh hell no!" Kel shouted, then he turned and tackled Jim.

"Dammit you two!" the Chief shouted.

"What? He started it!" Kel shot back.

"Kel, we just went over this…" the Chief said, a little frustrated.

"But this time, he made it personal…" Kel said in one of the coldest tones of voice he had ever used.

"Well, do you cry yourself to sleep?"

"What? No…well-…I mean, I did before…but not anymore."

"Sure you don't…" Jim murmured.

"Hey, if you don't shut your mouth, I'm gonna nail it shut…" Kel threatened.

"Yeah, sure. With what?"

Kel pulled out his spiker.

"Oh shit!" Jim shrieked. "Ok, ok! I'll leave you alone! God!"

"That's better…" Kel said quietly.

"God…and here I thought he was just trying to get me to shut up…" Jim murmured.

"No, I was dead serious…" Kel replied in the same cold voice.

"What's his deal?" Chelsea said while turning to Connor.

"I honestly don't know…" Connor replied. "It's pretty rare that he gets that pissed off…"

"But do you know why it happens in the first place?"

"He's just…had a pretty hard life. Bullied almost all his life, divorced parents when he was seven, never had the chance to have a girlfriend...and so on."

"That's…pretty sad…" Chelsea said quietly.

"Yeah. And because of all that, he's had all this anger and sadness built up inside him…that's why he has those occasional outbursts. I'm telling you this so that, if he gets pissed off easily at any time, it's not because he's mad at you…he's just mad at…well, the world really."

"Ok, I guess that's good to know…"

Off in the corner of the small room, Kel went to work sharpening his blades.

"That's a good idea." Connor said, and started to sharpen his as well.

Another hour into the drive, they finally reached the Rocky Mountains.

"Hold tight everyone…we're headin' into some rough terrain…" the Chief said.

Suddenly, the entire vehicle began to shake violently. The Rocky Mountains were no place to traverse in any vehicle, of any kind.

"God dammit! I didn't think it was gonna be this rough!" Jim yelled from the back.

The violent shakes of the vehicle sent Kel flying head first into one of the walls.

"Ow! Dammit!" he yelped in pain.

A soon as his head hit the wall, the wolverine drove over a large rock, which caused the vehicle to tilt upwards. As a result, it sent Kel flying backwards, causing him to hit his head on the back wall.

"Ugh! Dammit!" he yelped again.

As though it wasn't bad enough already, a third tremor sent him flying to the side, hitting the side of his head on yet, another wall.

"SON OF A BITCH!" he screamed in a mixture of pain and frustration.

Jim was literally rolling on the floor laughing. Partly because he thought it was funny, and partly because the vehicle was tilting back and forth non-stop.

"Nobody rofls in real life!" Kel yelled defensively.

"That's what you get for not wearing a seat belt kid!" Jim yelled back, still laughing hysterically.

Now angered by Jim's teasing, Kel kicked a cargo box towards Jim, right as another tremor shook the wolverine. The brute force of Kel's kick coupled with the strength of the quake sent the box straight at Jim. It hit him right in the diaphragm and knocked the wind out of him.

"Ha-ha! Now that's payback!" Kel yelled triumphantly before being launched into the driver's seat area.

"Ow!" he yelped in agony. "I'm gonna have such a migraine later!"

"Why don't you just _buckle yourself in?_" Connor suggested from his seat to which he was already strapped in.

"That's…actually a good idea…" Kel replied, feeling a bit embarrassed.

"Besides, we hate seeing you get hurt like that…" Chelsea said.

"Aww thanks…" Kel said quietly.

"Oh god…once I get my hands on you, I…ugh." Jim said through hoarse gasps.

"Ha-ha…sucker…" Connor mocked.

Kel started to look a bit pale.

"Are you ok?" Chelsea asked.

"I don't know…I feel like I'm bleeding or something…" Kel responded.

Connor glanced at the back of Kel's head and gasped.

"Ok, please don't freak out or anything, but you are bleeding. A lot." Connor said.

"I knew it…I mean, to be fair, I did hit my head in three different places." Kel responded right before fainting.

"Oh shit…we need bandages…now." Connor said, drastically searching the supply boxes for medical supplies.

Kel was literally lying in a pool of his own blood.

"Yes! Found it!" Connor exclaimed. He pulled out a large box fill to the rims with white bandages, and began to work furiously at wrapping his friend's head.

"Careful, not too tight…" Samus warned.

"Don't worry; I know what I'm doing…" Connor replied. Finally he finished, and the bleeding was stopped completely. Chelsea then helped lift him up and into one of the seats beside them.

"I better get a big ass 'thank you' when he wakes up…I might've just saved his life." Connor said tiredly.

"You probably did," Samus added, "he was bleeding quite a bit…I was ready to jump out of this seat to go help…"

"It's good to know that you care that much." Connor said with a little smile on his face, "He needs more friends like that anyway…"

Samus bent down by Kel and stroked his forehead.

"Yeah…he really does…" She said, her voice barely above a whisper.


	13. Chapter 13

**Fusion**

**Chapter 13**

Kel woke with a start.

"Ugh…Aww, what the hell happened?" he said tiredly.

"Well, you kinda hit your head in three different places, and almost bled to death." Connor replied.

"Oh yeah," Kel said, the memories starting to come back, "that kinda sucked…and it hurt…a lot. What time is it?"

"It's around 8 o'clock. Oh, and you're welcome." Connor said impatiently.

"What?" Kel said, slightly confused.

"Dude, I just saved your freakin' life…I think I deserve a thank you."

"Oh, yeah!' he replied, pulling the bandages off his head, "Thanks! I was actually starting to have a bit of a panic attack when my head started to bleed. I kinda thought that I was gonna die…"

"Oh come on. You know I wouldn't let you die like that."

"Likewise." Kel said with a smile on his face.

"GAY!" Jim shouted mockingly.

This time, the Chief actually did something about his behavior. He had finally had enough of Jim, so he went over and literally punched his lights out.

"Hey Chief," Connor started, "thanks."

"You're welcome. I was getting sick of that guy anyway." He replied, while taking the controls.

"What's his deal anyway?" Kel said. "Why is he such a douche? I mean, it's not like we did anything to him in the first place…"

"I know!" Connor replied. "I'm really starting to hate that guy…"

"Me too…and he's trying to hit on me." Samus said bitterly.

"Yeah, I could see that happening." Connor said ironically.

"But the part that I hate the most about him is that he seems to think that he's the greatest person who ever lived. For example, whenever he's around me, he tries to act all charming and stuff."

"I know! Who does he think he is? Rasputin?" Kel said.

"My point exactly…" Samus replied.

"Besides, you deserve someone better than _him_." Kel continued.

"You really mean that?"

"Of course I do! You've saved our world, and many others _multiple_ times…You deserve someone who truly loves you for who you are…"

"You're so sweet…" Samus said, while hugging him.

"Aww thanks…" Kel said blushing.

Suddenly the vehicle came to an abrupt stop.

"Hey, whats the hold up?" Connor asked.

"We're here." The Chief said. They all looked out the window, only to see a disheveled outpost that appeared to have been abandoned quite a while ago. Its blast shields were pretty much destroyed, the door was broken down, and the entire structure was laced with blood and plasma damage.

"What is this, the freakin' house of horrors?" Connor asked.

"It could be…it just depends on what you're afraid of…" the Chief said grimly.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, if you're afraid of dead people, then yes, it would be a house of horrors."

"Oh…well, it shouldn't be _that_ bad then…" Kel murmured.

"I thought you were afraid of dead people." Connor said.

"Not really, they just make me feel sick. I think it's just the whole concept of it."

"The concept? Ok, you just lost me…"

"Basically, just the whole idea that the person was alive one day, and dead the next."

"Ohh, ok. I get where you're coming from."

"Yeah, and I mean why would a dead person scare me? It's not like they're gonna come back to life or anything…even if they did, why should I be afraid if they're on our side? If anything, I should be happy that they're coming back to life, and accept them as a friend, not a foe."

"You know, I never really thought of it like that before…"

"You see? I'm just full of ideas…"

"Yeah, like not buckling in during the mountain climb."

"Hey, how was I supposed to know that the vehicle was gonna start shaking like that?"

"To be fair, I did warn you all beforehand..." the Chief said.

"Oh yeah, you did didn't you…" Kel said quietly.

"Yeah, I did." The Chief replied, while parking the Wolverine out back. "Now let's move. We need to get inside."

"Hey, what do we do with Jim?" Connor said while stepping out.

"Why don't we just leave him? I'm really starting to hate that guy anyway…" Chelsea replied.

"We should at least bring him inside. If we leave him out there, he'll get all pissed off when he wakes up, because he'll realize that we just left him out there, and then he'll be even more difficult to deal with." The Chief stated.

"Oh…yeah. I see your point…"

The run-down outpost was quite frightening from the outside. The broken door, dark interior and blood splattered walls were not encouraging. Although no one wanted to admit to it, they were quite scared…and jumpy.  
The Chief motioned for everyone to remain silent as they crept through the shadowy structure. Suddenly a weak moaning sound came from within the shadows. Still, they crept forward towards a part of the base where it sectioned off into multiple hallways. Down near the end of one of the hallways, there appeared to be some kind of faint, black light. As they got closer, the moaning became louder. They quickly turned the corner and not only to found a GFS trooper, but his dead squad as well.

"Soldier, are you alright?" Samus asked, worriedly.

"I'm ok…" he began, "but my friends…My friends aren't." He gestured to the dead bodies spread all over the floor.

"Soldier, what happened here?" The Chief questioned.

"They came…the covenant…and the pirates. Now I'm the only one left…"

"How did you manage to survive such an ordeal?" Kel asked inquisitively.

"I'm…not entirely sure. They came at us from all angles, and they sure as hell weren't gonna leave until they knew every single one of us was dead…we all know how stubborn these bastards are…" he paused for a moment, as though he were caught in a flash back. "But, all I really remember is fighting my way through small crowds of pirates and grunts, and then slowly backing myself into this corner. I had full intensions of giving my life that day…"

"But you survived…" The Chief finished.

"Precisely. I'm not sure how, but I guess they must've knocked me unconscious and forgotten about me."

"What's your name soldier?" The chief asked.

"2nd Lieutenant, Dylan, sir."

"2nd Lieutenant? So it was you who lead these men?"

"Yes sir. The most solely dependable and bravest soldiers I ever met. I would do anything to switch places with them today…"

"I understand your feeling of regret, but that's war. We win some, we lose some. Their sacrifices will not be in vain."

Dylan looked away for a moment, trying to swallow the razor-edged blade of sorrow and regret that would forever pierce his mind and soul.

"Sir…yes sir."

Samus reached out her hand.

"Come on. Let's get out of here."


	14. Chapter 14

**Fusion**

**Chapter 14**

Dark Samus was growing impatient with the profits. Before she agreed to ally with the covenant, the entire universe was her playground. No one ever told her what to do. She made the decisions, and no one ever dared to defy her choices. But now, it's become constant orders from her "superiors": "Do not engage unless fired on first", "Hold here, and wait for my orders…", "Do as I say! Or you will pay dearly…" And why? Because they were more powerful than her. Never in her life had she seen such a vast army composed of so many species. Even with her army, she would not stand a chance against the raw, brutal strength of the covenant.

She was however, growing quite fond of the grunts. She thought that the way they behaved was cute and funny, but other than that, she was very much disliked the rest of the alien armada. Especially the profits. They treated themselves like gods…and acted like it too. She was growing tired of their arrogance, and was becoming very impatient. They promised her a position of power, but had not yet followed through on it. She lived for power. She lived for control. She lived for dominance. With her position of authority seized and out of her reach, she was nothing more than just a soldier, fighting on the front lines with an ally that she barely knew…or tolerated.

She was once held accountable for corrupting two hunters and turning them on an Elite squad that was unfortunate enough to be near the rampaging monsters. Her excuse was pitiful, but reasonable: "Hey, I was just trying to have some fun…besides, there are no cute boys around, and you took away my position of power from my own army. What do you expect me to do? Just stand around all day and watch the skirmishers and grunts quarrel 24/7? I don't think so…" They let her off with a warning.

She was quickly becoming angry with her superior's mistreatment towards her, and decided it was time for a change. Time was short, and she needed to carry out with her plan, which was of course, to corrupt Kel and use his anger and sorrow to turn him on the federation and the U.N.S.C. But first, she would have to escape. She decided that she would leave the night of the next full moon. That was a week from where she was. Her escape was imminent.

Finally, that night came. She snuck through the narrow and dark hallways of the covenant ship, searching for one of the airlocks that had an escape pod. Eventually she came across the one she was searching for. It was the smallest of the airlocks and would make the least amount of noise when the steel plates unlocked. To her surprise, there were no guards or cameras of any sort watching her moments. That was quite unusual for a covenant super carrier.

"Well…that was easy…" she whispered to herself.

Suddenly, a space pirate commando came down the hall, most likely on its daily guard routine.

"You there…" she whispered. The pirate jumped.

"Shhh…it's alright. I am no enemy. I am simply trying to escape this ship, and regain the control I once had. Come with me, and we'll both share the same gift that freedom brings."

The pirate hopped into the pod before she could even finish. Clearly, they were just as desperate as her. She typed a code into the control panel to set a course for earth. This was it. She was finally leaving. The steel plates unlocked, and opened, sending the pod flying into space at an incredible rate. The covenant super carrier became smaller and smaller, until it was out of sight. Now they were alone.

"All my life, I never thought I would be so happy to be sailing freely through space like this…" Dark Samus thought out loud. The pirate just sat there in silent agreement.

"In a way, I have to thank the covenant," She went on. "If it weren't for them, I would not have been a slave; therefore, I would not have felt the need to escape. And if all this had not taken place, then I would have never been able to truly realize the gift of beauty that the special atmosphere offered…"

The pirate peered out one of the windows, trying to comprehend the beauty of what she was describing.

"It's incredible isn't it? It makes me eternally grateful for my freedom in this place."

Eventually, the beauty of the stars and consolations around her began to lull her to sleep. She dreamt of what it would be like to travel to all those separate little lights in the sky, and witness the true grace and exquisiteness of the stars. It was the most pleasant dream that she had ever had in the long life that she had previously lived. No question. She began to wonder if something as gorgeous as the stars could actually exist, and for a moment, she questioned the very existence of the stars themselves…But eventually, she realized that in the end, I wouldn't matter what was "pretty" and what was not. She would have enough to worry about when she finally took control of this galaxy…

Dark Samus woke with a start. The pod was trembling violently, which could only mean one thing. They had finally arrived. The pod breached earth's atmosphere, and caught fire almost immediately. The pod began to heat up, and the metallic casing cracked.

Although it was in the middle of the night, she was still able to make out the ocean and the land mass, which was Canada.

"This should be fun…" She said, realizing that the reverse booster engines had failed. Moments later, the pod landed; crunching the front end, breaking the glass sealing, and sending it spinning out of control. The pod bounced for what felt like an eternity, before it finally came to a complete halt.

"Ow…" Dark Samus whimpered. Somehow, she had only sustained a few scratches and bruises, but when she looked over, she saw that her space pirate companion had been seriously injured.

"Oh my…" She said worriedly. The pirate moaned and growled quietly in agony.

"Hold still…" Dark Samus whispered while placing a hand on the injured pirate's chest. She sent a few jolts of phazon through the pirate, essentially corrupting him. His wounds healed, and the dislocated joint he had suffered, immediately popped back into place. It seemed that Dark Samus was just as much a blessing as she was a curse.

"Come on, let's get going. We have work to do…" She said while helping the pirate up. She enabled her phazon power suit, and it quickly formed around her thin body. Now she was ready for anything. Almost.

They exited the ruined pod, and took a glance at the damage.

"Not a happy landing." Dark Samus stated ironically, then turned and began to walk away. The pirate gave an unimpressed grunt, and then turned to join his new leader.


	15. Chapter 15

**Fusion**

**Chapter 15**

Despite the damage dealt to the small outpost, the computers and alarm systems were still working.

"We need to notify command that an entire covenant and space pirate fleet has invaded this planet…" The Chief said grimly.

"Wouldn't they know already? I mean, they did destroy a pretty big base." Connor said inquisitively.

"The first thing they shot was the communications satellite. They knew that we'd call for help, so they beat us to it."

"But…does this station have good enough range to reach whatever it is you're trying to reach?"

"That's what I'm afraid of…These outposts were built to be able to send radio communications to as far as the nearest solar system. But the damage that was done to this structure might've been just enough to knock out all communication capacities…"

"Well, let's try it and see how it turns out." Connor said, while reaching for the console. The Chief snatched his hand.

"Hey, what are you-"

"The console was damaged slightly, and there are torn cords coming out of the sides. If you were to touch it, you would surely be electrocuted. I have a rubber sealing in my armor. Let me handle this."

The Chief went ahead and began ripping some cords out, and twisting others together. Eventually, the large screen bolted to the wall above them, lit up.

"A-ha! I knew you'd get it to work." Connor exclaimed with a smile on his face. "Now we just gotta see if it works…"

The Chief stood up and walked over to a small control panel to the right of the screen, and typed in a code. The screen lit up, and the U.N.S.C. logo appeared.

"It works." The chief said.

"But how do you know? You haven't even tried to communicate with them yet…" Connor said in protest.

"I know because, this console is linked to the U.N.S.C.'s central computer mainframe. As soon as that logo appears, we're connected."

The Chief typed down another code, which brought up a display screen that read "Connecting…". Suddenly, a communications screen opened up. A voice spoke through the speakers at the sides of the screen.

"We are receiving you now, please identify."

"This is Master Chief of the U.N.S.C. I am stationed at battle outpost Delta with new recruits, Samus Aran, and 2nd Lieutenant Dylan. The southern BC base has been destroyed."

There was a pause. This was news to them.

"How many survived?"

"Not many. I am sure that Lord Hood and Admiral Dane managed to escape though. As for everyone else…well, I can't say. Hundreds of Soldiers died by my side last night…" The Chief said grimly.

"Understood. We are sending a transport to your position now. It should only take about a day or so. Close transmission."

The screen quickly faded, and turned off.

"Well, I guess that solves our transportation issue…" Connor stated.

The Chief turned and walked away without another word.

"Dammit, I hate it when he does that…" Connor murmured. He then turned, and went to rejoin the others.


	16. Chapter 16

**Fusion**

**Chapter 16**

November 25th, 11:30 pm

Lower British Colombian desert plains

The sky was glowing with the hypnotic light of the stars, and once again, Dark Samus was absolutely mesmerized by them. She and her pirate ally companion had been walking all throughout the night, searching. She still hadn't told the pirate about her plan to corrupt Kel, so as far as the pirate was concerned, they were just walking around.

"I guess you deserve to know what we're really doing…" Dark Samus sighed. "The real reason for these actions is that there is someone…someone here on this planet, that we need."

The pirate was listening attentively.

"His name is Kelly, and he is a new recruit for the U.N.S.C. and the Galactic Federation…and he has the true potential of a warrior. He's had a difficult life, and for as long as he can remember, he's had all this anger and sadness built up inside of him. If I can corrupt him, and bring him under my control, we will have a powerful new ally. Once he is with us, I will give him the opportunity to finally vent all of his negative emotions…" She paused.

"And when that happens, he will destroy everything around him…"

The pirate stared at her for a moment, processing what she had just told him. He gave an amused grunt and kept walking.

"Good. I'm glad you like it." Dark Samus said. She turned her gaze towards the stars. "Just you wait…we'll find him. And once we do, we'll take back what is rightfully ours: Complete control over this galaxy." The pirate growled in agreement.

"You see, it's a win-win situation in our favor. You will avenge the enslavement of your brothers, and I will reclaim my position of power. And until that goal has been achieved, none shall stand in our way."

They strode off into the night without another word.


	17. Chapter 17

**Fusion**

**Chapter 17**

Morning. The sky was shrouded with clouds so dark that they were almost black; a sure sign of thunder and lightning. The group was searching the ruins of the outpost, looking for anything that could potentially aid them in literally, holding the fort. As for all the things they found; Samus found a few fully stocked ammo boxes with explosives and extra helmets. Kel and Chelsea discovered a computer room with only a few working monitors, but it was still something. Connor and the Chief spent their time finding spare and broken barricades along with some metal plates that they were putting together for barricades. As for Jim, he had finally regained consciousness at around 5:00 in the morning, so not only was he pissed off that the Chief punched his lights out, but he also woke everyone up.

Thunder finally struck. It had been a while since those dark, forbidding clouds had swallowed the sky like a black plague, and the group was starting to wonder what to expect. Wind blew, trees fell down, and the skeletal structure of the outpost began to shake violently. This was no regular storm.

"Augh! What the hell?" Jim screamed. "What is this? BC never gets storms like that!"

"I know! I don't get it either!" Connor yelled back.

"Everyone, inside!" the Chief shouted over the sound of the rushing wind.

Kel and the Chief just barely managed to slam the outpost's steel plates shut before a large piece of the roof was ripped off and blown towards the door. There was a loud thud as the roof shard stuck into the door with its razor edges.

"That…was a little too close…" the Chief said quietly.

"Yeah, no kidding…" Kel replied, while turning his head, only to realize that the shard had stuck just about an inch from his head. "Whoa…now that could've hurt…"

"Is everyone ok?" the Chief asked.

"Yeah…"

"Barely…"  
"Yeah, sure."  
"Yeah, I'm fine."  
"I think so…"

The structure resumed its violent rattle, as the group came back to their senses.

"Did we get everything back inside?" Connor asked.

"I would hope so. We had some pretty valuable things with us…" Samus replied.

"Well, it doesn't matter now…" Chelsea began. "If it was outside, it would have been swept away for sure."

Something out of the corner of Kel's eye caught his attention; something that was reflecting the small amount of light in the room. As he walked towards it, he realized it was another dead Galactic Federation soldier; but what caught his eye was his arm canon. There was a small hatch opened on the side with a picture of a women and a girl on the inside. As Kel examined the picture, he came to the realization that this was a picture of his wife and daughter.

Samus noticed Kel off in the corner and went to go check on what he was doing.

"What did you find?" She asked.

"This soldier…he had a family…" Kel replied quietly.

Samus put an arm around him. "Its things like these that make war so horrible. A soldier will go off to fight for the good of his or her country, only to be killed in combat. But what's even worse is when they have a family back home…a family who will never see them again."

"Why? Why do these things have to happen? Good people like these men and women don't deserve to die…"

"I know, it's difficult to swallow, but we all have to deal with it sometime or another."

"I just wish there was something I could've done…" Kel said, looking down.

"…I know how that feels…" Samus replied, her voice barely above a whisper.

They then both left the soldier to his final resting place, and then went to rejoin the others.


	18. Chapter 18

**Fusion**

**Chapter 18**

Dark Samus crept through the bushes and trees that surrounded the small outpost that had just been struck with the storm she had created. This was easier than she had anticipated.

She had observed the group rush into the outpost as soon as the storm had hit…just as she had planned. Now that they were all in one spot, the task would become much easier.

"Now we just have to take them down…but not out… We can't risk injuring our target." The pirate nodded in silent acknowledgment.

"Circle around back…and make sure they don't try to pull a fast one on us…" The commando left Dark Samus, and quickly began climbing and swinging through trees until it disappeared the outpost and away from sight.

_Now…the fun begins… _Dark Samus thought with a little smile on her masked face. 

She flew around to the front, charged up her phazon attack beam and fired off a few shots, which literally melted a few of the salvaged steel plates on the outside. The structure began to shake, it's damaged and unstable structural skeleton failing and collapsing under the sheer power of Dark Samus.

"Holy hell, what now?" Connor yelled.

"Another storm?" Chelsea shouted in response.

"No, this is something else!" The Chief shouted back.

Suddenly the front door was blown clean off, and the frame was stretched, and wrenched from its foundation.

"What the fu-" Connor began, before being hit by an oncoming piece of the door.

Chelsea went to go help him out, but right before she could, the entire front of the outpost was ripped off, and a bright blue-ish turquoise light blinded them. The light slowly faded, only to reveal Dark Samus floating in front of them.

"No…" Samus said in disbelief.

"If that's who I think it is…then we're in a lot of trouble…" Kel said quietly.

Dark Samus's arm cannon began to rattle and illuminate in such a way that it appeared as though it was going to explode. She pointed her weapon at the group, and fired. The tip of the arm cannon literally shot a sun's worth of energy at the group, knocking them unconscious and paralyzing them, but somehow, not harming them. After all, Dark Samus was just as much a blessing as she was a curse. She flew down to examine the wreckage….and to find Kel, who was lying at the back of the room, completely motionless.

"There you are…" She said, her voice barely above a whisper. The pirate poked its head out from behind the structure, and began looking around for anyone who might've somehow, miraculously survived the incident. After searching for about a minute, it became very clear that no one was awake. The pirate motioned to Dark Samus that everything was clear. She nodded in response, picked up Kel and began to take flight. The pirate, being equipped with its own assault jet pack, quickly joined her. Dark Samus looked over at her partner in crime.

"Come on. Let's take our future accomplice home." She said quietly. She turned away, and summoned all the power she possessed to create a portal through space which led back to the pirate home world.

"Quickly…the portal can only be held open for a short time…" She said, almost nervous. The pirate stepped through, and was swallowed by the turquoise hue of the phazon gateway. Dark Samus quickly followed just as the portal began to close.

She stepped into a world which seemed to resemble some kind of twisted, alien metal, steam punk planet. The pirate seemed to relax a little, taking in deep breaths of sulfuric exhaust spewing from a few pipes nearby. The Commando clearly hadn't seen home for a long time.

Seeing the pirate appreciate its home so much gave her a little twinge of happiness. She began to wonder what it was like to have a home. The closest thing she had to home, was the phazon planet, known as Phaze. But in reality, she had nothing in terms of a birthplace. It saddened her a bit, but then she realized that, just like the stars and the beauty of space, it would all soon become insignificant in comparison to her future position of power over the present galaxy.


	19. Chapter 19

**Fusion**

**Chapter 19**

Connor woke with a start. His eyes darted around the wrecked outpost, frantically trying to figure out what had happened. Then he remembered. They were working on rebuilding the outpost, then the storm came, then Dark Samus…and then what? He couldn't remember. As far as he was concerned, the outpost was completely destroyed, and the transport they had been promised still hadn't arrived. Everything was getting out of hand it seemed.

"Ugh…ah! What the hell?" he said, coming to the realization that he was trapped under a piece of the outpost's blown off door. Having just woken up, he wasn't at full strength yet, but yet, he still managed to lift the steel plate off his body.

"Hey, is anybody else awake?" he called out. A few seconds later, Jim awnsered.

"Yeah, me…"

_Ah, great…_ Connor thought.

"What the hell just happened?" Jim went on. "All I remember is the storm…then the place got ripped apart...and then, there was this person floating there that had a power armor suit that looked like a black version of the suit that Samus has…then they fired some kind of light at us…and then…I don't remember…"

"Honestly, that's about all I can remember too…maybe even less." Connor replied.

"Well, isn't that just great…our base is destroyed and we don't know what the hell happened…" Jim put forth in a frustrated tone.

"Hey wait…where's Kel? He's the only one I don't see here…" Connor said while checking the room for the others.

"He probably got crushed under a panel or something…"

"Quick, you gotta help me look for him! He could be seriously injured…again." Connor urged while flipping over various parts of the walls that had come off during the storm.

"Yeah well, whats in it for me?" Jim questioned with a smirk spread across his face.

"Hmm…how about that your eyes remain **inside** your head!" Connor spat angrily, gesturing to his eye sockets.

"Whoa man, calm the hell down! I'll help you…God!"

One by one, the rest of group woke up to the sounds of metal plates being flipped, and objects being thrown aside. The Chief was the last one to wake up.

"What's going on?" The Chief asked impatiently. "What are you looking for?

"We can't find Kel anywhere, and we think he could be buried somewhere around here…" Jim said flatly.

"And how long have you been searching?"

"Almost an hour…" Connor said tiredly. "And it's starting to freak me out, because I don't think he's here…"

The Chief looked around the shattered inner structure of what was once a decent outpost of theirs. It was nothing more than a wreck now. Destroyed beyond the point of repair and completely useless, unless used for spare parts…if it was even worth that.

"I have a theory about where he might be…" Samus said quietly.

"Where? Where could he possibly be at a time like this?" Chelsea asked.

"Dark Samus."

Everyone froze.

"No…that can't possibly be the truth…" Connor replied.

"Well, what other possibility is there? She appears, knocks us all unconscious, and the next thing we know, Kel is gone. Who else could have taken him?" the Chief stated.

"What that's just great…what are we supposed to do now with one of our teammates missing in action?"

"That's a question that I can't answer…all I know is that-"

The Chief was cut off by the sounds of dying thrusters outside the outpost.

"…our ride is here." He said quietly.

A man in a dark blue-ish uniform stepped out the pelican transport that had landed by the outpost.

"Hello. I am General Craig Myers of the U.N.S.C. I am here with your transport, ready take for takeoff. We are ready when you are."

The Chief paused for a moment.

"We can't take off…not yet…one of-"

"One of our guys is missing, and we can't find him!" Connor cut him off.

The general stood there a moment. "It's alright. We have resources available to you, if you wish to stay longer. We will wait with you. But, if it's all possible, please hurry. Time is of the essence."

Chelsea turned to Connor, "We've been searching for what, an hour now? We've searched every inch of the outpost…or whats left of it. Do you really think we'll find him? Even after Samus's theory?"

Connor pondered this for a moment. He ran everything through his head one last time. The days past events, the hour spent searching, and the possibility of Samus's assumption. Then, he finally gave in.

"I feel terrible doing this…" He began. "But, I think Samus is right. Dark Samus is the only possible reason for his disappearance at this point…let's go."

As he began to walk towards the pelican, something glimmered out of the corner of his eye. Something familiar looking just laying on the floor of the outpost. As he went to go pick it up, he realized what it was: Kel's silvery-bronze cross necklace that he wore almost every day. Kel was a Christian, and although, he never preached about his religion, it was still a very important part of his life.

"What's that?" Chelsea asked.  
"Kel's necklace…he'll want this back." Connor tucked the necklace away in his pocket, and started off towards the pelican with Chelsea and the rest of the group.


	20. Chapter 20

**Fusion**

**Chapter 20**

Kel slowly woke to a dim turquoise light. His eyesight was blurry, and his memories of what had happened were completely vacant in his mind. He was confused as to where he was, but for whatever reason, fear had not enveloped him as he had expected. He was at peace.

He began to look around for some kind of a door, or an exit of any kind. This had to be some kind of special medical bay. The only thing he could see was darkness around him. But, what was illuminating the room with that eerie turquoise glow? Then he looked at what he was laying on. Supported by a 3 foot platform, there was some kind of form that was the same shape and size of a king sized mattress, but it wasn't one. It was a large, soft piece of transparent blue-turquoise material that was full of what appeared to be veins of some kind. Each vein pulsed with energy, with visible light blue liquid flowing through it. It was almost as if the material was alive.

Kel tried to get up, only to realize that something was stopping him. No, not something, someone. He looked over to his right to find an incredibly beautiful girl just lying there, with one of her arms gently wrapped around him. She couldn't have been older than 19 or 20, but, nonetheless, she looked absolutely gorgeous! She was pale, and had a thin body, perfect curves, long, silky light blue hair, and a stunning, angel-like face. She was wearing a black skin tight suit of some kind.

"Wow…" Kel whispered to himself. Not many times in his life had he seen someone as beautiful as her, and he couldn't seem to take his eyes off of her. She moaned quietly, and cuddled a bit closer to him.

_This is amazing…I swear she's an angel…_ Kel thought to himself. His heart was racing and felt like it was on fire.

Then he realized something: She was the same girl from the dreams he had been having lately…

_The hell? I didn't know she was real!_

He couldn't believe it. He had always dismissed her as a figure of his imagination.

Slowly, she began to slide her hand up his chest until she reached the top of his head. She ran her fingers through his long brown hair and caressed the side of his face before pulling him in closer and landing a kiss on his cheek.

Kel felt his face go warm. He knew he was blushing. Then he heard her giggle.

"You're cute…" she said quietly. She had a very calming, almost soothing voice.

"…thank you." Kel replied hesitantly. He was almost nervous to the point of silence.

The girl caressed the side of his face again. "It's ok…don't be nervous." She said with a little smile on her face. Kel just sighed in return. The girl's beauty was mesmerizing him to the point where he couldn't think of what to say.

Finally, he gained the courage to speak. "Who-…who are you?"

"I thought you'd have recognized me by now…" She replied.

"I did. You were the one-…you were the one in my dreams…But who are you…specifically?" Kel whispered.

She stared deep into Kel's piercing hazel eyes. "I…am the one known as Dark Samus."

Kel froze. One of the main enemies they had been battling the entire time was cuddling up with him.

_How could this happen?! _The thoughts literally screamed inside his head. _Take your knife, and slit her throat! If you do, you'll play a major role in winning this war! Do it for your family…do it for your friends…do it for your entire race! Do it…Do it now! _

His thoughts literally argued with each other. _Don't! Don't do it! She's the only person in your life who's ever shown you love before! Don't do it! You'll regret it for as long as you live! You won't be ABLE to live if you don't kill her immediately! Just do it! No, don't! Do it! Get it over with! If you want to feel loved, then don't!_

"So what now? Are you gonna kill me or what?" Kel asked bitterly, ignoring the mental confliction he was feeling.

She moaned lustfully. "Now why would I do that? What a waste that would be…"

She stroked the side of his head and pulled him closer. "But I need you alive more than anything right now…" she whispered in his ear. "The value that you hold is much greater than you give yourself credit for."

"What could you possibly want with me?" Kel hissed. "There's nothing special about me…I'm just another pawn on the chessboard…"

"Oh no…there is, in fact, something very special about you." She paused for a moment. "In time, you will learn to recognize it, as I have…You see, I know much more about you than you may realize…"

Kel looked at her inquisitively.

"I know about your many lost love interests, I know about all those incompetents who degraded you for nearly a decade, I know about your miserably unstable emotional state, I know about your need for revenge…and I know about your intense desire for love."

Kel stared into her deeply focused eyes. "How? How do you know all this?" He whispered.

"I have my ways…but that's not the point. The point is…do you want your revenge or not?"

"More than anything else…well, _almost_ more than anything else…" Kel said quietly.

"Ooh, do I see another love interest happening?" Dark Samus said suggestively.

Kel blushed. "What? No of course not…"

She stroked his arm and looked at him lovingly. "You seem to forget my ability to read minds…"

Kel paused for a moment and took a deep breath to calm down. He was growing tired of her intrusions into his mind. Kel figured that, at this point, it was futile to even think about hiding anything from her…because she'd read that thought too.

"You are beyond gorgeous, ok?" He finally said. "You are quite possibly the most immensely beautiful girl I've ever seen in my entire life…"

Dark Samus pulled him closer and kissed him on the cheek. Kel seemed to ease up a bit. In his mind, the fact that this dark, but beautiful angel was growing on him, was a fact that was becoming harder and harder to ignore. He knew it was wrong, but he just couldn't help it. He was becoming so emotionally conflicted that he almost couldn't take it.

"It's alright if you love me…it can be our little secret…" Dark Samus whispered in Kel's ear.

"But it's wrong." Kel stated.

"It may be…but bad doesn't lead to bad, nor good from good…just because you do something wrong, doesn't mean there will be consequences. People steal and never get caught, others lie and cheat…and get elected."

"People will think I'm a traitor…"

Dark Samus held his head up to meet her eyes. "They don't have to know…"

She leaned in and passionately kissed him. Such close, intimate contact was very unfamiliar to Kel, and it sent shivers down his spine. He knew what he was doing was wrong…but he couldn't help but love it. He wrapped his arms around her, and held her close.

She stopped for a moment. "You like that…don't you."

"More than you can ever imagine…" Kel whispered back.

She leaned in and kissed him again, this time for much longer.

Eventually, the kissing stopped and Kel fell asleep in her arms. Dark Samus stayed awake for a little while longer, contemplating her satisfaction with her accomplishment. Unbeknownst to Kel; when she had kissed him the first time, Phazon from her lips had leaked down into his throat. It would eventually become absorbed in his body, and get transferred into his bloodstream. It would slowly take over one blood cell at a time, until he was completely corrupted.

She giggled. "Love is a sweet and wonderful thing…"


	21. Chapter 21

**Fusion**

**Chapter 21**

Dreams of love and happiness washed over Kel as he slept. This was a very rare occasion. His dreams went on for what felt like forever…then he woke up. He sat up, only to find that Dark Samus was nowhere to be seen. He looked around the now more brightly lit room to search for an exit of some kind. Just across the room from him, there appeared to be some kind of door made of turquoise flesh and plant life that was shielded by some kind of thin force field. He looked around the room and saw that the walls were made up of the same fleshy-plant life, which was bright, and coursing with bright blue veins.

"Hmm…interesting." He said, in a rather menacing tone.

Kel felt like he was filled to the brim with power, like someone had jabbed a pipe into his heart, and pumped the sun into it. He looked down at his arms. His veins were a brighter blue than usual…like a bright turquoise color. His arms seemed a bit bigger too, almost as if someone had pumped extra muscle into them. His leg muscles had seemingly gone through the same transformation. He lifted up his shirt only to realize that his chest muscles had become more defined aswell.

"Well, this is…intriguing." Kel said quietly. He felt as though there was some kind of controllable energy coursing through his blood stream. So he tested it. He held out his hand, and compelled the energy inside of him to form into his palm. In a split second, bright blue-ish turquoise flames sprouted from his hand. The bottom of the flames themselves appeared to be composed of some kind of liquid, which was eternally igniting itself in an on-going rotation of fusion and chemical reactions. It was beautiful.

"Wow…" he said in utter amazement. _This can't really be happening, can it? It's probably just part of the dream…_

Eventually it became very clear to him that the dream was over…and that this energy spout in his palm was, in fact, quite real.

"Incredible…" He was in complete awe of the power display before him. He turned towards the door, and unleashed a powerful blast of the energy from his hand, which literally shattered the door. To Kel's surprise, there was very little recoil from the blast; in fact, there was almost nothing there in terms of a returning force. He closed his hand, and the flames dissipated. He then started for the door, and exited the room.

There was a long dimly lit hall before him. It had a dark green-turquoise hue to it. As he walked down the hallway, he noticed that there was a thin sheet of crystal welded to the wall. It was just like a mirror, but it was made of something a bit different. He looked at his reflection and immediately jumped back. He looked…different. His hair had somehow been turned jet black, and his eye color was blood red like a demon's. His skin was as pale as ever, and was a bit more clear looking.

_Hmm. That's an improvement… _He thought to himself. He resumed his walk down the hallway. The air in there was fresh, much like a field of lush green grass and plant life. The somber hallway came to a sharp corner, with a door just around it.

_Ok, let's try not to completely sabotage the door this time…_

Kel raised his hand towards the door, willed a smaller amount of energy into it, and unleashed it. A thin beam shield that had been covering the door, retracted and released the door clamps. The door opened swiftly to reveal a somewhat small room, with an artificially made hole dug right in the center of it. The hole was filled with Phazon. The ground had become softer, and almost squishy. It had the same blue-turquoise pulsing veins that all the walls had. It was as though the room itself was alive.

Kel made his way over to the phazon pool, only to see Dark Samus laying, completely exposed in it. _Whoa…_ Kel thought.

She looked like she was at peace. How ironic.

She moaned quietly and opened her eyes. She saw Kel and smiled sweetly.

"So…you're awake." She said, sitting up in the phazon pit.

"What happened to me? What did you do?" Kel asked. "Why's my hair black? Why are my eyes red…and what is this stuff?" He went on, forming the blue-ish flames in his hand once again.

"Phazon." She replied.

"What?"

"Those blues flames in your palm are pure phazon."

"But…how? How is this possible? Where did I get the ability to control phazon?"

A curious little smile spread across Dark Samus's angel-like face. "I gave it to you."

Then Kel remembered the kiss the night before. "You didn't…" He replied quietly.

"I did."

"You dripped phazon down my throat didn't you…"

She smiled. "You figured that out quickly…apparently I underestimated how smart you were."

Kel softened up a bit.

Dark Samus stood up out of the pool of phazon and slowly made her way over to Kel. "But you what? I like that. It's good to know that you're smarter than the average person…"

"Well, I wouldn't say that…" Kel replied humbly, trying his hardest to ignore the fact that Dark Samus wasn't wearing a thing.

"And why is that?"

"Well, I'm not exactly the smartest person around…"

Dark Samus lifted his chin to meet her eyes. "Oh come on, you're clever…"

"Clever…but not smart. There's a big difference between the two."

"True, but that's not the point. The point is, I've seen you and your friend before. Your strategic skills as a team are incredible. You're clever enough to think of creative ways to take your foes down, and your friend executes them beautifully."

"You…you really think we're that good?" Kel asked, quite amused by Dark Samus's compliment.

"No…I know you're that good. That's why I need you. You're just the kind of fighter I need. Clever and cunning."

"But why? What is it that you so desperately need to accomplish?" Kel asked quietly.

"Not accomplish…acquire." She corrected.

"Well what is it? Just tell me…please." Kel said quietly, stroking the side of her pretty face.

"Power, control…They're things I can't live without." The black skin tight suit reformed around her thin body. "And just like I told you…help me, and that power can be yours too. Think about it…everything you've ever wanted to do, everyone you've wanted to pay back for what they've done to you…it can all be brought to life."

Kel thought about it for a moment. He knew what was right, and what was wrong, but he couldn't help but love her idea. All those incompetent bullies over the years, all the things they had done, all the people who had wronged him…they would all finally pay.

A curious look spread across Dark Samus's gentle face. "Also, being a Christian, you're hated by about 80% of the earth, correct?"

A sad look formed on Kel's face. "Yeah…it makes me sad. I've tried so hard in my life to be a good person and to love everybody; just as Christians are taught to do…but the world still hates me…I'm not a bad person." A tear came to his eye.

Dark Samus's heart began to feel heavy. Was she actually feeling sympathetic? She wiped away the tear and held him close. "I'm sorry…I didn't mean to bring up such a dark subject."

She held him for a moment, contemplating the new feeling of sympathy she had just felt. "But…the point I was getting at, was that you could finally be able to pay back all those who hated you simply for what you believed in."

She pulled away, only to be startled by the horrendous grin on Kel's face. The red in his eyes lit up slightly. "You know what?" Kel said in an equally deep and sinister voice. "You're right. I can finally pay them back- I could pay them all back! You hate me for what I believe?!" Massive phazon flames erupted from his hands. "Well then…you can go **straight to hell!**"

Suddenly, Kel became engulfed in a tornado of his own phazon. He began laughing maniacally.

_This is insane! _Dark Samus thought. _I've never seen a human act like this before!_

The vortex of blue flame became larger. Kel's anger and anxiousness were increasing rapidly. The vortex then opened up just enough to reveal Kel's upper torso. His maniacal grin had only gotten bigger, and his eyes were literally overflowing with crimson light.

It was becoming very clear to Dark Samus that his power level was beginning to overflow. If this went on much longer, he would overtax his system, and his body would explode, making one hell of a mess.

"Stop!" She cried, in an attempt to save Kel, and herself.

"Why should I?!" Kel shouted. "This is amazing! Never in my life have I ever felt such power!"

"If you want to live and be able to feel it again, then stop! You're going to overload your body with phazon! It's going to kill you!"

Almost immediately after she said that, the red in Kel's eyes dimed and dissipated. The tornado of blue flames died down, and Kel was left kneeling on the floor. Dark Samus let out a sigh of relief.

"Whoa…" Kel said, clearly in a daze. "Got a little dizzy for a second there..."

Dark Samus giggled, a little smile stretching across her face.

"What? Whats so funny?" Kel asked.

"Oh nothing…" She replied, lifting his chin up. "Just you."

She landed a kiss right on his lips.


	22. Chapter 22

**Fusion**

**Chapter 22**

The pelican transport flew through space at an incredible rate of speed. Even though it was flying through hyperspace faster than the speed of light, it still took the trip from one solar system to another about a day or two.

They had taken off the day before, and hadn't stopped flying for the past 27 hours. It didn't matter to Connor, Chelsea, or Jim. It was their first time in space, and they were completely awestruck by the sheer beauty that surrounded them.

"Wow…no wonder people are able to fly through space for such long periods of time…it's beautiful." Chelsea said quietly.

Connor held her close. "Yeah…it really is."

Jim was silent. He hadn't said a word since they breached the atmosphere, mostly because he had been keeping his eyes on the scenery the whole time.

Samus and the Chief hadn't talked much either, and Dylan had been asleep almost the whole time.

Suddenly, the intercom came on, interrupting their moment of silence. "We are nearing our destination. Estimated about 15 minutes before we breach the planet's atmosphere. At this time, if you are not strapped in, we are going to have to ask you to do so. Atmosphere breaches on the way in are often more violent than on the way out. We will be landing on the surface of Reach within the next estimated 25 minutes."

"Wait, we're going to Reach?" Connor asked, surprised.

"Yes, we are." The Chief responded.

The next 15 minutes Connor spent staring out the window, watching the planet Reach get closer, and closer. He had never seen another planet before, although he had heard a lot about it. It belonged to the covenant, so landing there was going to be very difficult. However, there were a few confirmed safe areas on the planet that were secure enough to be landing zones.  
As the planet came closer, he was able to make out the landscape and the general area of their landing zone. Forest, and lots of it. Not only that, but it was almost night time, so landing hopefully wouldn't be a problem.

"Look at that…" Connor said to Chelsea.

"It's so pretty." Chelsea whispered back.

"It really is…it's a shame that we have to land in secret if we don't want to be blown up by those cove bastards…"

"I'm sure we'll be fine."

"Don't worry, we will. If anything goes wrong, I'll protect you. I'll catch you if you fall…Just like I always have."

Chelsea leaned in and landed a kiss on his cheek. "Thank you…"


	23. Chapter 23

**Fusion**

**Chapter 23**

Dark Samus watched as Kel became more and more familiar with his new found abilities. He was progressing much quicker than she could have ever anticipated. His anger and uncontrollable need for vengeance seemed to be influencing him in such a way that he was now more eager than ever to learn how to control his phazon.

_Huh. Using his own obsessions to further himself in his own training… How...creative._

Watching Kel manipulate and control the substance pleased her. He moved his arms in a circular motion, creating a large spherical globe of phazon. A look of fear came over his pale face. The sphere was growing too big for him to be able to handle. He uncontrollably launched the phazon towards a few covenant energy batteries which erupted in a colorful explosion of blue and pink smoke and fire.

"It was already cracked." Kel said, his crimson eyes stretched wide open. Dark Samus just smiled in return. She slowly made her way over to him.

"That's alright…it's all part of learning." She said, her voice barely above a whisper. "You'll get it eventually."

"I hope so." Kel replied in that ominously low pitched corrupted voice of his. "I'm dying to finally pay back all those half-wit pricks for what they did to me over the years."

A horrendous grin spread across his face. "What a sight it will be to see their bloody entrails splayed all over the ground."

Dark Samus backed up a bit, actually startled by the sheer savageness of Kel's thoughts and ideas.

_Is this really what goes through a human's head? Maybe I underestimated their potential for brutality…_

"What…what is it?" Kel said. He approached her menacingly. "Too brutal? Is that even possible for you?"

A look of nervousness came across Dark Samus's face. Kel stared her down intensely, then smiled slightly.

"It's alright…" he said, stroking the side of her angel-like face. "Don't be afraid."

"I'm-…I'm not." She protested.

"You're not a very good liar." Kel said in a quiet tone.

"And you are irritating…"

Kel stood there a moment. He then smirked, and turned around to resume his training with the phazon.

"Have it your way." He said.

_He's becoming more dangerous and smart than I ever intended him to be… _Dark Samus thought. _This may turn into a bigger issue than I'd like it to be…_

"You know," Kel began, interrupting her thoughts. "Taking the planet will not be a difficult task…"

"How so?" Dark Samus asked, quite intrigued.

"Well, seeing that I was born into a generation that does not have the edge, or the will to survive, my guesses would be that they won't put up as big of a fight as they probably should…however, there are many fighters were I come from, so I may be wrong." He turned back to face her. "I do have one idea though."

"Whats that?"

"It's essentially a giant diversion. We convince the Profits to send the entire covenant fleet on a full scale attack towards planet Reach. Earth and Reach are both human colony planets. When one is attacked, the other is obligated to come to its aid."

"I like where you're going with this…" Dark Samus said, a little smile spreading over her face.

"So while the earthly military forces occupy Reach…"

"Earth will be almost completely unprotected…" Dark Samus finished.

"Precisely."

"I like the way you think."

_Maybe I was wrong…maybe his level of intelligence __will__ help me out… _Dark Samus thought. _This just might get me what I need…_


	24. Chapter 24

**Fusion**

**Chapter 24**

The pelican breached Reach's atmosphere, and began its descent towards a forested landing zone somewhere in the Middle Eastern part of the planet Reach.

"Wow…another Planet. I never thought I'd live to see the day." Connor said quietly. "It doesn't look much different than Earth though…"

"That's because it's the same planet type, just with different land masses. It's basically just another Earth." The Chief replied.

"We should be able to land here. Reach is covenant occupied, but the forested areas are usually pretty vacant." Samus said.

"Let's just hope they don't pick us up on their radars-" Connor began, but before he could finish, the pelican shook violently, waking Dylan up and scaring everyone half to death.

"What's going on? Pilot, whats happening?" Connor cried out.

"Banshees! Six of them! And one of them just hit us with a banshee bomb!" The pilot cried back.

"Shit, what do we do?" Jim shouted.

"We fight back, that's what! Pilot, open the back hatch." Connor replied.

"What are you doing? Are you insane?" Chelsea protested.

"Hey," Connor said reassuringly. "I'll be alright." He grabbed a long cable and held on tightly as the large steel door slowly opened. He stood on the edge of the opening, and peered down at the gorgeous green landscape passing below.

"Don't think that's a good idea!" Jim shouted over the roar of the hurricane force winds outside.

"Got it Jim." Connor replied sarcastically. Then he let go of the rope. Chelsea gasped.

Connor flew out the back of the pelican and timed his descent just perfectly so that he landed on a passing Banshee. He landed hard and got the wind knocked out of him, but still he hung on. The banshee swerved and flipped in all directions, in an attempt to fling off the pesky human. It took a sharp turn, and Connor slid to the right of the flying vehicle, nearly falling to his death.

"Oh God!" He screamed. He latched his fingers onto the small openings between the double set of wing-like appendages, and hung on. Again, the banshee flipped, and Connor bounced off the right wing and landed directly on top of the canopy.

"Alright you son of a bitch…" Connor said angrily. He forced the canopy open, sucker punched the Elite pilot in the face, and then threw him out. He then took control of the banshee and fought back against the others.

"Holy shit…" Jim said in amazement. "The kid just jacked a banshee!"

"Really? You mean he's alright?" Chelsea asked eagerly.

"See for yourself."

Dylan ran over to the edge and looked down. A single banshee was attacking and destroying all the other ones.

"Good God, he's killing the hell outta those guys!"

Connor fought hard until the last banshee was blown to bits. He then followed the pelican to a small patch of open forest, where there appeared to be some kind of landing zone. The pelican landed safely, but Connor flew overhead and landed in the trees. There was the sound of a crash, and the eerie hum of the banshee's gravity engines was silenced.

The crew stepped out of the pelican, and ran to the spot where they last saw Connor's banshee. They pushed through a few trees and bushes, before finally coming to an opening of broken trees and rocks. In a pile of wreckage, was the banshee. It was badly damaged. The canopy was dented in multiple places, wings were broken, and the gravity propulsion engines were completely fried.

"Connor!" Chelsea cried.

The hatch of the banshee made a sharp metal on metal screech, shot out a few sparks, and then flew open. Connor rolled sideways out of the ship.

"Ow." He said flatly.

Chelsea ran over to help him up. "What happened? Are you alright?"

"I'm fine…but the banshee is pretty much screwed."

"Why'd you crash like that? I didn't see you get hit…" Dylan asked.

"Well, flying them is one thing, but banshees are weird as hell, and I have NO idea how to land them…" Connor replied tiredly.

Chelsea held him close. "Well, the important thing is that you're ok."

"I told you not to worry." Connor said with a smile on his face.

"Hey, are we going, or what?" Jim asked impatiently.

"Right. Everyone, get to the base. They're expecting us." The Chief said.

"We're expected?" Dylan asked.

"Yes, and we're keeping them waiting. I suggest we go." The Chief turned and started back towards to small base.

"Come on, let's go." Connor said to Chelsea. He held her hand, and they walked back together with Jim and Dylan right behind them.

The small U.N.S.C base was very well camouflaged in the forest. It was darkly colored with a brown-ish green bark color. It was almost completely surrounded by trees and rocks, and was nearly impossible to see from above. The perfect hiding place. The moon shone brilliantly in the night sky, glinting dully off little silver bits of the base.

The group approached what appeared to be the door to the base. A hatch just above the door opened up, and a camera eye emerged from it. It stared at them for a moment, and then retracted into the hatch before the steel clamps were released and the heavy door slid open. A tall man in a military uniform stood in the doorway to greet them.

"Hello. Welcome to outpost Delta 67. I am Sgt. Clinton Leitz, and I welcome you on behalf of the U.N.S.C."

"Sir. It's an honor." The Chief said.

"Likewise, Master Chief. Why don't you and your team come and walk with me."

The Sgt. Turned and began down a long white hallway. At the end there was a large elevator shaft. Leitz pressed a button and waited for the lift to arrive.

"When we received your distress call from Earth, we knew right away that the covenant had attacked Base Echo 57. We sent multiple transports to aid those fleeing the covenant strike force. You and your team were the only ones we found." The elevator arrived and the group stepped in. "A good third of the soldiers were found dead, and the rest have been declared M.I.A. As of now, we can only assume the worst."

"I don't blame you. We barely escaped ourselves…" Connor said.

"Well it's good that you're all here." The Sgt. Replied.

"Well…not all of us." Connor said quietly. The elevator stopped, almost as if in response to Connor's statement.

The Sgt. and the group stepped out of the elevator. Leitz then stopped, and turned around to face them. "There was another one of you?"

"A good friend of ours, yes." Chelsea replied.

Sgt. Leitz turned to Connor. "Tell me what happened to him. And be specific. I want to know the whole story."


	25. Chapter 25

**Fusion**

**Chapter 25**

Convincing the Profits that Reach was the better target was no easy task. They were quite stubborn, but the persuasions of Kel and Dark Samus eventually changed their minds.

"You assumptions better be correct human. Or you, like the rest of your race, will suffer." Kel let the cold words of the Profit of Truth sink in.

The profits never really trusted Kel in the first place, simply because he was human. He was the only "heretic" they were not permitted to kill. And although they would never admit it, they were afraid of him. Never had they seen a horrendous red eyed human such as him. He controlled phazon like it was his second nature, he spoke in an unusually menacing tone, and he always seemed to be watching them, like a predator waiting for just the right moment to attack. His very presence unnerved them. There was something about that human that just wasn't right.

His loyalty to Dark Samus frustrated them as well. They were well aware of his power and capabilities. They wanted that power, but his devotion to Dark Samus made it next to impossible for them to control him in any way, shape or form.

"The human follows her like an Unggoy to a Sangheili." The Profit of Regret began. "What I fail to understand is how such a lowly life form can become so powerful so quickly, and then become acquainted with an equally powerful being. He must have been chosen by the Gods…"

"Fool!" The Profit of Truth snapped. "You are blinded with impossibilities! The Gods would not dare choose a pathetic heretic like him. Only one of the finest would have been chosen. Not some incompetent human." The Profit turned in his hovering throne and looked out the energy shield window. High Charity's broad mechanical landscape stretched out for miles in front of them.

"What you truly fail to understand is the motive of the Gods…which is to eradicate all heretics. Allied or not, the human is still a heretic. Eventually, he will die. One way…or another."


	26. Chapter 26

**Fusion**

**Chapter 26**

Back on Phaze, Kel was in deep thought. He knew Earth was the better target, but something was compelling him to go to Reach. He was unsure as to what it was.

"Reach is just another pathetic dust ball." He said quietly. "However…it's rich with technology and equipment we could use. And knowing the covenant, it'll all be burnt and turned to glass once they're done with it…" Suddenly a new idea came into his head. He rushed down countless hallways before coming to the room where Dark Samus was. She was lying in a pool of Phazon.

She heard him come in and opened her eyes. "Yes?"

"I have a new idea."

Dark Samus sat up. "Tell me."

"As you know, Reach is covenant occupied, and they are quickly taking over. However, when it comes to the covenant, "taking over" means destroying everything until there's nothing left."

Dark Samus thought for a moment, "This is relevant. But how?"

"There's tons of perfectly good equipment and electronics on Reach that are all in perfect working condition. And I think we could use some of it. All I ask for is your ship."

A little smile spread across Dark Samus's face. "Don't hurt yourself."

Kel returned the smile, then ran off.

He ran back through the maze of hallways until he reached a large clearing, where Dark Samus's ship sat. The freezing cold temperatures of Phaze's atmosphere bit into Kel's skin. As Kel walked towards the dark ship, something caught his eye. Something small and white. As he turned to see what it was, he realized that it was snowing.

"Snow? On Phaze? That's a first…"

He stood there for a moment, almost as if in a trance. He remembered his old life back on Earth, and the freezing cold winters they would get in Canada. He remembered all the fun he use to have with the snow and his friends when he was very little. But what carried the most value, were those memories of just simply staring out the windows at the sight of the beautiful white, crystallized landscape. Winter was Kel's favorite season, always has been, always will be. He loved the gorgeous snow capped mountains, the soft quiet roads, and how the falling snow always seemed to dampen the sound of the noisy trucks and cars outside.

He took a deep breath, and thought of all those fond memories. Then his eyes flew open.

"I have no time for pointless memories such as these…" He quickly strode over to the ship and climbed in. A small squad of Space Pirates where resting inside the ship.

"You there! You're all coming with me. We have some very important business to attend to."


	27. Chapter 27

**Fusion**

**Chapter 27**

Connor told the Sgt. everything. How he and Kel got to the military base, how they were put through longs hours of training, how the Covenant attacked in the middle of the night, and how they escaped the fight and drove off into the woodland area and found the destroyed outpost where Dylan was lying nearly dead, having just barely survived a fight himself. Then he told him about how a dark floating figure, assumed to be Dark Samus, appeared out of nowhere, fired some kind of concussion blast at them, and knocked them all unconscious. When they woke up, Kel was nowhere to be seen.

"Samus was the one who suggested the idea that Dark Samus took him. We never really wanted to believe that, but eventually it became pretty obvious that he was nowhere to be found. The only explanation for that would be that he really was taken. Then your guys showed up and we flew off."

Sgt. Leitz took a moment to take all of this in. No one had ever recorded an account of one of their comrades being abducted like that before…especially not by Dark Samus. This was all very strange.

"And none of you have any idea where he might have been taken?"

The group remained silent.

"I see." He turned and stared out the window at the vast expanse of forest before him. "Well, for now, the only thing we can do is wait it out. Rescue missions are next to impossible if no information on their location is provided…"

Outside, the morning sun glinted off the sharp peaks of the distant mountains. It was a beautiful, but somehow disturbing sight. Had the covenant not invaded Reach, maybe mornings would have been a little more enjoyable…

The Sgt. stared at the horizon for a moment, and then turned back to the group. "I have something that I must show you all. It just may be thing that wins us this war. Follow me."

They followed the Sgt. past a few groups of passing soldiers, and down what felt like an endless maze of hallways. Eventually the hallways came to an end where a huge steel door was standing. Leitz typed a password into a small console beside the door, and in a few short moments, steam erupted from the cracks between the door and the ground, and the massive door slid open.

A small room opened up before them. It was filled with computers and security camera screens, and had a large console which stretched from one end of the wall to the other. Just behind the console was a large, thick sheet of glass. Behind the glass was yet another room of equal size, but it was much emptier. The only thing inside of it, was a stand with a large weapon mounted on top of it.

It was unlike anything any of them had ever seen. The weapon had a long, round cylindrical shape with a thin, elongated handle at one end, and four sharp horn-like appendages protruding from the other end, angling down towards the front end of the weapon. Its appearance was quite menacing.

"Whoa, what the hell is that?" Jim asked.

"That, is a prototype weapon, called the Spark Rifle. Our soldiers have been starting to call it the Phantom Ray due its devastating effects on whatever it hits."

"Why? What does it do?" Connor asked, clearly intrigued by the contraption.

"Once fired, the concentrated energy inside will begin to break down and disintegrate whatever it hits. However, this does not happen instantly. It usually takes a couple of minutes."

"I want to see it." The Chief said flatly.

"Of course…" The Sgt. replied. He walked over to the large console to begin the procedure.

Suddenly there was a loud thud, and the whole building shook.

"What the hell?! What was that?" Connor cried.

"We've been discovered!" Leitz shouted.

In the room behind the glass, a small circle of blue sparks formed on the ceiling. Then, the huge circular slab of steel fell from the ceiling to the floor.

"No…" Dylan said in disbelief.

A few Space pirates and a Pirate Commando jumped in through the hole, and shattered the thick sheet of glass that separated the two rooms. A tall, slender figure then jumped down through the hole to join them. The figure had long, jet black hair and incredibly pale skin.

"Who the hell is that?" Dylan said.

The figure lifted his head slightly and revealed his eyes. They were intense, crimson red eyes that looked like they could burn holes right through you. Connor knew immediately who the intruder was.

"Kel?!" He shouted, trying not to believe what he was seeing.

Kel's eyes widened and a horrendous grin spread across his face. "Hey ol' buddy…Didn't think you'd see ME again, did you?!" He snatched the Spark Rifle and laughed maniacally as he propelled himself up and out of the hole on what looked like some kind of jet of blue flames. The Pirates then bent down and sprung up and out of the hole with him.

The Chief turned to Leitz. "Where's your hangar?"

"Follow me!" He replied. He ran over the console, opened the blast door and darted down the hallway. The group could hardly keep up with Leitz as he was an incredibly fast runner.

Leitz was a good 30 feet ahead, when Jim called out, "Hey dude, wait up!"

Seconds later, a small section of the hallway exploded, and Leitz was swallowed by a wall of flame.

"Holy shit!" cried a startled Jim.

Brutes and Space Pirates began flooding into the hallway.

"What are we supposed to do about those guys?! We gotta go!" Connor shouted.

"Stand back." Samus said quietly. An orangey glow formed around her thin figure, and then materialized to become her Varia suit. She then raised her arm canon and shot a shiny bright blue missile at the Brutes and Pirates. They were all frozen instantly.

"Alright…my turn." The Chief said. He sprinted towards the frozen intruders, and then jumped with both feet pointed in front of him. The enemies were literally shattered by the Chief's kick.

Jim looked at Samus's suit in amazement. "What the fu-? Why didn't you use that before?"

She smiled under her helmet. "You guys always seemed to have everything under control."

"Come on, let's go!" Connor shouted, already running ahead. The group sprinted down and out of the hallway. Just to their right, there was a large door that read "Hangar 01".

"Ha ha! Just our luck!" Connor laughed. He ran over to the door, but it was locked. Another familiar-looking console stood beside the door.

"Aww great, it's locked! Now what?"

Again, Samus raised her arm canon. A large ball of energy formed at the end, and then she released it. It struck the blast door hard, and blew a hole in it.

"Huh. Well that works." Dylan said flatly. The group rushed through the wrecked door and saw a large Pelican stationed right in front of them.

"Perfect!" Connor said, and rushed into the vehicle, with Jim and Dylan following closely behind.

The Chief and Samus quickly got in and rushed to the pilot's seat.

"You know how to fly a Pelican, right?" Dylan asked.

"Watch me." the Chief replied.

The Pelicans engines roared, and the ship took off.

Off in the distance, they saw a small black ship outlined with a glowing bright blue color.

"There! That's gotta be them." Connor said. "We can't let them escape with that thing!"

The pelican flew at an amazing speed, forcing everyone back up against their chairs.

"Holy shit can this thing fly!" Jim shouted.

Off in the distance, something on the back of the enemy ship began to light up.

"What's that?" Chelsea cried.

"I think they're gonna try to jump!" Dylan suggested.

"Jump to light speed?! In atmosphere?!" Connor replied.

"That's not possible, is it?" Chelsea asked.

Suddenly the light on the back of the ship sparked, and flew towards the Pelican.

"Whoa!" Jim cried, as the ship swerved to dodge the oncoming shot.

"That's no light speed engine; it's a gun of some kind…" Samus said.

They boosted their engines, and flew up very closely behind the black ship.

"How are we even supposed to get the weapon back? If we shoot them down, we might risk destroying it…" Chelsea said.

"And we might just kill one of our best friends too…" Connor added.

Two hatches on top of the black ship opened up, and two Space Pirates came out. They primed their weapons, and began firing bolts of dark beam at the Pelican.

"What the hell is that stuff?!" Dylan cried, as the Pelican flew upwards, in an attempt to avoid the purple shots.

"It's dark beam." Samus explained, "If they hit us with a big enough shot, our ship will become engulfed in a hard brittle shell, resembling dark crystals."

"And then we're screwed, right? I mean, we can't fly covered in crystals!" Jim said.

"The crystals will dissipate in a few moments; however it only takes a few moments to crash into the ground."

"How about instead of being afraid of dying in a crystallized ship, we blow those pirates to bits?" Connor suggested.

"Done." The Chief said flatly.

The Pelican fired a few shots from its front mounted canon, and blew the pirates right off the ship.

"Ha ha! Got those suckers!" Connor cried triumphantly. "Now let's get that weapon back…"

They flew the Pelican incredibly close to the enemy ship, and readied themselves for boarding.

"Jim, Dylan, Connor, we need you to board that ship immediately. We're the only ones who will be able to keep this thing flying while you three are down there."

"Right!" Connor said in agreement.

The back hatch of the Pelican opened up, and Connor, Dylan and Jim prepared to jump.

"We'll bring you right over top of the ship." The Chief explained, "Then you three will jump. Getting inside the ship shouldn't be a problem."

Suddenly, the black ship sped up and flew ahead of them, and then slowed back down at about a hundred meters away.

"Are they trying to get away?" Chelsea asked.

"No, they're maintaining their distance. They were just simply trying to get ahead of us for some reason…" Samus replied.

Off in the distance, a small hatch on top of the black ship opened up. Kel rose out of it with the Spark Rifle in his hands.

"Shit! If he hits us, we're screwed!" Connor cried.

"Not if I can help it…" The Chief said quietly.

A red-ish glow formed around the Spark Rifle, and the small portion of the weapon with the claw-like attachments began rotating at an incredible rate.

"He's gonna fire!" Dylan cried.

Then it happened. Kel fired the Spark Rifle, and a long red and gold beam was shot from its rotating tip. The beam itself resembled a long stream of red and gold sparks all mashed together into one shot. It was a mesmerizing, but terrifying sight.

"Whoa!"

"Holy shit!"

"Son of a bitch!"

The Chief took a sharp turn and dodged the shot. The sharp turn, as a result, sent Jim flying towards the back of the Pelican, which was still open. He caught onto a safety rail at the very last possible second, and held on with his life.

"Guys? Guys?! I need help!" he shouted over the roaring wind.

The Chief looked back, "Connor, Dylan, handle him!"

They carefully made their way over to Jim, trying not to be swept off their feet and out the door by the rushing wind.

"Guys…guys! I'm slipping!" Jim cried.

"Just hold on! We're almost there!" Dylan shouted back.

Dylan reached out and snatched Jim's hand. "Guys! Shut the door!"

Samus hit a button on the control panel, and the large steel blast door shut.

Jim looked at Connor and Dylan. For a brief moment, he had a look of seriousness in his eyes. "Thanks…I guess I owe you guys one."

The Pelican lurched to the left to avoid another shot from Kel, and the three of them were sent flying into the wall.

Chelsea cringed. "Guys, strap yourselves in before you get killed!"

The three hurried over to the seats and fastened themselves to the chair.

They watched as Kel fired more shots at their ship, each one of them missing by just a few inches. Had it not been for the Chief's skills in flying and maneuvering, they would be a pile of bloody scrap metal of the forest floor by now.

The enemy ship slowed down slightly, almost as if inviting them to catch up.

"What are they doing?" Samus whispered.

"I don't know. But whatever it is…I'm not falling for it…" The Chief replied.

Suddenly, the black ship's reverse thrusters lit up, and the ship flew back towards the Pelican.

"Whoa!" Jim shouted.

Master Chief angled the Pelican upwards, and the black ship flew by just below them.

"What the hell are they doing?" Dylan cried.

"I think they're gonna try to hit us from behind!" Chelsea replied.

"Oh no…" Samus said quietly.

Then without any warning, the Pelican lurched forward like it had just been rammed by a rhino.

"What the-? What the hell was that?" Jim cried.

"We're hit…" The Chief said solemnly.

"No…" Chelsea said quietly.

Kel, still standing atop the ship, laughed maniacally as they flew past. He then disappeared into the ship, and jumped to light speed. The little black ship disappeared in an instant.

"No! They got away!" Connor shouted angrily.

A small red splotch formed on the inside of the Pelican's back door.

"Whoa, what is that?!" Dylan said nervously.

The splotch was slowly growing and wherever it went, little flakes of burnt, half disintegrated metal fell to the floor.

"Oh no…oh no…That damn Spark Rifle shot is destroying the ship! Chief! We have to land somewhere, or we're all gonna die!"

The Chief nodded. "Setting a course for the outpost."

Dylan and Jim went to go examine the damage.

"What is that stuff?"

"Don't touch it."

Jim reached out and felt the red spot. He jerked his hand back. "Ow! That shit is hot!"

"I told you not to touch it…" Dylan said flatly.

"Whatever…"

"I wouldn't be standing near that stuff if I were you…" Chelsea warned.

"Yeah besides, that splotch has gotten significantly bigger in the last few minutes. I'd get away from it." Connor suggested.

Jim and Dylan sat back down hesitantly.

"How long 'til we touch down?" Connor asked.

"At least 5 minutes…we flew pretty far." Samus replied.

The red stain continued to grow at a steady rate.

Connor sighed nervously, and looked down at the floor. Chelsea wrapped an arm around him.

"We'll make it." She reassured him.

"Not making it isn't what's bothering me…" Connor looked her right in the eyes. "It's the fact that Kel got away with such a destructive weapon, that's bothering me."

Chelsea held him close. "I know…"

The red blot was covering half the door now. At the very center, where it started, a small hole was starting to open up in the Pelican's hull. A light draft began flowing through the hole and into ship.

"Guys, look." Dylan said. "It's literally disintegrating the door!"

"How much longer?" Connor asked anxiously.

"A few more minutes…" The Chief replied. "This thing can't go much faster."

Chelsea, Connor, Dylan and Jim all watched as the hole slowly got bigger and bigger along with the red splotch.

It looked almost as if the ship had a disease; the red blot eating away at the steel like a leprosy cell to human flesh. And the group, they were like white blood cells. The disease would soon destroy the body, and them, the white blood cells, would go down with it. The whole situation seemed hopeless.

Off in the distance, dozens of banshees and a couple of phantoms took off from the base.

"It appears that the battle was lost…" Dylan stated.

"Or something could've scared them off." Jim added.

Connor looked up. "How often do you see covenant retreat for no reason?"

"That's exactly what I was thinking…" Samus said quietly.

Suddenly, a colossal beam of orange and yellow energy shot down from the sky, and the assumed position of the base erupted, and went up in flames. Satellite dishes and sheets of metal flew this way and that. Half destroyed warthogs and hornets were thrown from the wreckage. Small bits of pieces of discarded wastes and dysfunctional explosives were sent flying from the explosion. It was a disaster, to say the least.

"No, no…This can't be happening…" Connor said, feeling defeated.

"Oh my…" Samus whispered. The group stood up and came to the cock pit. They all stared out the window in horror. A covenant super carrier the size of New York was looming overhead. The carrier's enormous laser spot on its underside was lit up.

"Resetting course." The Chief said gravely.

"To where?!" Connor snapped. "There isn't a single base for miles, and it's only a matter of time before that shot from the Spark Rifle completely destroys the ship!"

"Dude, calm the hell down!" Jim shouted.

"Yeah, don't worry, we'll think of something!" Dylan reassured him, regardless of how doubtful he was feeling.

""We'll think of something"? Just what the hell did you have in mind Dylan?! We have a growing hole in our Pelican, and there's a huge ass ship overhead ready literally blow our shit out of the sky!" Connor shouted angrily.

"All of you calm down! Screaming isn't gonna get us anywhere any faster!" Chelsea finally said.

Suddenly Connor backed down. "I know…"

The covenant super carrier's beam flared up and readied itself for another shot.  
"Brace yourselves. It's charging its excavation beam." The Chief warned.

Then, just before the shot was fired, the canon exploded. Purple, blue, and pink smoke and fire billowed out from the opening.

"Whoa, what the hell?" Jim cried.

Dylan peered out the window. "Frigates! 4 of them!" He then turned to Connor, "See? I told you we'd be alright!"

"You didn't' say that…" Connor replied skeptically.

"Whatever, the point is, we're gonna be ok!"

A loud voice came through the intercom, "U.N.S.C. Pelican Charlie 5, do you copy?"

"This is the Master Chief of the U.N.S.C., to whom am I speaking?"

"I am Commander Neil Hoffman of frigate Brinsfield. We noticed you ran into some trouble with that super carrier, so we came to help."

"You guys couldn't have come at a better time. We have a growing hole in our ship." Dylan said into the receptor.

"We'll provide cover fire for the time being, you and your team find a landing zone somewhere in the forest. A few squadrons have been sent down to help you out." The Commander said.

"Affirmative." The Chief replied.

Over the speaker, a different voice came. "Covenant super carrier in firing range. MAC rounds have been authorized."

"MAC rounds? In atmosphere?" Dylan asked, surprised.

"Only one way to get them off our back." Samus replied.

The Pelican shook as a large dull yellow bolt was shot from Brinsfield's main canon. The other frigates followed the actions of the first. Multiple shots were fired from the 4 frigates, and they hit the super carrier's excavation canon with pinpoint precision. Over all, not much damage was dealt to the immeasurably colossal covenant ship, but the canon was finished. The frigates continued to fire on the ship. Eventually, the super carrier sluggishly rose into the clouds.

"The carrier's gun is dust. They're retreating." The Commander's voice spoke through the intercom. "You may now land safely."

"Thank you commander." Samus spoke softly into the speaker.

The Chief spotted a small clearing in the woods ahead.

"Found a landing zone." He finally said.


	28. Chapter 28

**Fusion**

**Chapter 28**

Dark Samus's ship touched down on the snowy-white surface of planet Phaze. Kel stepped out and took a deep breath of the ice cold air. It was like a blast from the past for him.

"Ah…Just like old times." He whispered.

He strode over to the door leading inside the massive Leviathan seed standing in front of him, the remaining space pirates following close behind. He turned to face them.

"You've done well. In the long run, we'll all be rewarded."

They nodded in response, and continued through the door, carrying the Spark Rifle with them. They made their way through the labyrinth of hallways, and came to a slightly larger door. Kel shot a small blast of phazon to remove the energy shield covering the entrance, and made his way in. Dark Samus was standing in the middle of the room, her power armor fitting tightly around her body. Kel came up behind her, and held out the Spark Rifle.

"I told you I'd find something." He said, proudly.

She turned and eyed the strange, but fascinating weapon in front of her.

"What is that, might I ask?" She asked, intrigued.

"I'm not sure what its name is, but it has a calamitous effect on whatever it hits."

"Show me."

Kel turned, aimed the gun at a few covenant energy batteries stacked in the corner, and fired. The beam shot out like and array of red and gold sparks, which struck the batteries with a fair amount of force. The batteries, all covered with red splotches, were thrown from their resting places and hit the walls, nearly exploding. They disintegrated a few moments later, and the Space Pirates roared in triumph. Dark Samus removed her helmet.

"Well, this is something." She said smiling.

"It most certainly is. It's incredibly powerful, and it just may be what wins us this war." Kel began inspecting the weapon more closely. "I'm not sure of the extent of its effects, however from what I've seen, the larger the object, the longer it takes to disintegrate. I don't know why, but that's just how it works."

Dark Samus smiled. "I knew I could count on you." She stroked the side of his face, then leaned in and landed a kiss on his forehead. Kel smiled.

Dark Samus gently grabbed hold of Kel's hand and guided him back out the door. "Come on," she said, "We've got plenty of work to do."


	29. Chapter 29

**Fusion**

**Chapter 29**

"We're coming over you now." The Commander's voice said over the intercom.

The frigate blasted over head and flew ahead.

"We'll find a safe spot to land, and then we'll send out a few warthogs and hornets to find to come find you." He continued.

"Thank you Commander." Samus replied.

The Chief had landed the Pelican as safely as he could, however it was quite difficult with the growing hole in the ship. By now, the red substance had completely eaten up the back hatch.

"Remember not to step on the red stuff when you get out." Connor warned. He turned to Jim. "Yeah, that means you."

"Screw off." Jim replied.

The group stepped out and examined the damage.

"Holy god…that stuff is literally eating the ship…" Dylan said whilst observing the after effects of the Phantom Ray.

"You can say that again…" Jim added.

"You know what scares me?" Connor joined in, "The fact that this is what one shot from that thing can do…and it's in the hands of someone that wants nothing more than total and complete destruction."

"Some friend that kid was…" Jim murmured.

"He didn't choose to be this way!" Connor snapped.

"Whoa, whoa hey calm down…" Chelsea said.

The rest of the Chief and Samus turned their attention to the argument.

"He would never do something like this on purpose… Did you even see his eyes?! They were red! Blood Red! And his hair was black as black can be! You don't just decide one day to change your eye color and betray your friends! Something happened to him…and I'm pretty sure Dark Samus had something to do with it…"

"She's incredibly powerful and very deceptive," Samus stepped in. "There is a multitude of things she could have done to make him change. There's no way of knowing what happened…unless we got the information directly from him."

Connor turned to her. "What are you suggesting?"

"I'm suggesting that we take him captive. The only way to figure out whats going on is with him. He knows something, and we need to get it out of him. We could also do some experimenting on him; try to figure out what happened to him."

"And just how do you expect us to do that? He's got a weapon capable of taking out an entire ship on its own!" Chelsea demanded.

"He seems to be attracted to powerful or advanced technology and weaponry. If we could lure him in with something, we may be able to snag him." The Chief suggested. "However it won't be easy. As we've seen with that weapon, he can destroy whatever he wants at will."

"Well…It's definitely worth a shot. I mean, we do need to get him back as soon as we can."

"Yeah…but what are we going to lure him with?" Connor asked.

"Well, that won't be hard. Just anything that's valuable I guess." Dylan added. "Possibly something rich with energy?"

Everyone looked at each other for a moment.

"Fusion coils…" Connor finally said. "We could use fusion coils. But we lots of them. And fast."


	30. Chapter 30

**Fusion**

**Chapter 30**

The bright sun, tinted by a smoggy red atmosphere, glinted off the wind shields of the hornet and the warthogs as they scanned the forest floor, searching the forested landscape for the missing group.

"How are you guys holding up down there?" The Hornet pilot spoke through a speaker to one of the warthog drivers.

"We're doing alright. Do you see anything?"

"Negative sir, I'll radio in as soon as I see any sign of life."

"Copy that." The driver responded.

"How are we supposed to find these guys? Dammit man, we're looking for a small group of people in a billion miles of forest and what-not." The warthog's passenger complained to the gunner.

"Hey cool it Brian, we'll find 'em soon enough." The gunner replied.

Suddenly, they came across what appeared to be about a third of a pelican transport. The back end was being eaten up by what appeared to be red ooze or liquid of some kind. Near the wreck was the missing group.

The warthog driver spoke into the transceiver. "Mission control, we've found them. Repeat, we've found them."

"Good work Captain. Bring them home." Commander Hoffman's voice replied.

The warthog and passenger warthog pulled up beside the ruined ship.

One of the warthog drivers stepped out. "Allow me to introduce myself…I'm Captain Jonnie Wade. My squad and I were sent to locate your little ensemble. I guess you could say we were successful."

"Good thing you found us. Cause our ship is finished." Jim said plainly.

"I can see that. Well, no use standing around, hop in and we'll escort you all back to the frigate. We managed to land it a few miles away. It shouldn't take that long to make our way back."

"I hope not." The Chief added. "We have some…important business to attend to."


	31. Chapter 31

**Fusion**

**Chapter 31**

The colossal covenant fleet flew suspended in the emptiness of space. Their slip-space generators were primed and ready for immediate use. The invasion of planet Reach was inevitable.

The prophet of Truth commanded all the ships to jump to hyperspace, and the ships disappeared in an instant.

Just outside the gravitational grasp of Reach, the covenant fleet appeared. They unleashed hordes of drop ships like enormous nests of killer insects.

The phantom and spirit drop ships blotted out the sun, and fired of shots of super heated plasma at the cities below. Pandemonium had seemingly struck the planet's surface.

The U.N.S.C. retaliated with A.A. cannons, but they were of little use against the endless mass of covenant weaponry. The turrets were instantly destroyed by the returning fire of the drop ships. The phantoms and spirits dropped everything they had; Elites, grunts, skirmishers, brutes, jackals, drones, even hunters. They devastated the landscape and everything that stood in their way.

The military police and U.N.S.C. soldiers were useless. The packs of jackals and grunts alone were too great of a threat for them to overcome. It was utter chaos to say the very, very least.

Packs of grunt specialists wielding fuel rod cannons were unleashed on the ONI sword base infrastructure. They demolished the door, and made their way inside, followed by elite Zealots and field marshals. Anyone inside who wasn't on the covenant's side was slaughtered and torn to bits. Eventually, nothing but a bloody mess of human organs and appendages remained. The covenant now owned sword base.

All across Reach, these events were reoccurring. Massive covenant fleets flew in, ransacked whatever they didn't need, or saw as "insignificant" and took over. The covenant were relentless in their genocidal campaign, and seemed unstoppable.

In less than a week, Reach would be ridden of all human life.


	32. Chapter 32

**Fusion**

**Chapter 32**

Kel peered out the small delicate window from the inside of Dark Samus's rather small ship. He stared blankly at the scorched, glassy black surface of the planet Reach. The covenant was making progress at an incredible rate.

Suddenly, he began feel cold, which was quite unusual for him. It was the kind of coldness you felt when you were incredibly sick…or guilty of something you couldn't ignore or deny. He couldn't help but feel as though what he was doing was wrong. He didn't know why, seeing as he was the master mind behind this little escapade. He wrestled with his thoughts, trying to convince himself that this genocidal campaign was somehow justifiable in some way, shape or form.

_There are innocents down there…_ He thought.

_And they're being slaughtered because of me. Because…I failed. You have failed at nothing! Enough with these self inflicted mental wounds! You're mutilating your own conscience. The lives of those on Reach mean nothing to you. Their torment will end soon. And we will rise above it all. We will be victorious._

Eventually, Kel managed to get his emotional battle under control.

Then, out of nowhere, arms gently wrapped around him from behind. It was Dark Samus.

"You're cold…" She whispered.

"Yeah…I know." The warmth of the dark angel's embrace calmed him.

"Why is that?" She asked, stroking his cheek

"I don't know" He lied, "This has never happened before."

"You're lying."

"I know…"

Dark Samus gazed into his regretful crimson eyes. She smiled. "Your eyes are just as gorgeous as ever…"

She leaned in a landed a kiss on his lips.

Suddenly, just like a miraculous act of sorcery, all of Kel's grief was washed away. The regret was nonexistent, and he felt better than he ever had before.

He leaned in close, "Thank you… I feel much better now."

"I'm glad." She smiled.

Kel looked back out the frozen window. He gazed intently at the blackened surface of the once fertile planet.

"So, how much longer until Reach falls?"

"Not long. Within the next week, Reach will be ours." Dark Samus replied quietly.

All the little flashing lights and buttons on the control panels coupled with the eerie hum of the ship's engine calmed them both. The somber silence inside the dark ship created a strange, peaceful stillness. It made all the destruction before them seem so…insignificant.

There, within the tight confines of the small dark ship, they held each other.

"It's pretty isn't it?" Kel whispered.

"What?"

"Space, the stars, the nebula, the bright blue and pink space dust…it's all so beautiful..."

"You think so too?" Dark Samus suggested.

"I most certainly do…I always have. I've always thought space was the most astounding sight ever to be viewed by any living thing."

"It truly is a beautiful sight."

Dark Samus leaned against Kel and peacefully shut her eyes.


	33. Chapter 33

**Fusion**

**Chapter 33**

"475…476...477…478. 478 fusion coils. That's definitely enough." Said Jim, observing the enormous cluster of fusion coils before him.

"Are you kidding me? If we wanna get their attention, we're gonna need at least two more…" Connor said mockingly. Jim glared.

They stood in the large farmer's field, admiring their accomplishment.

"You really think that this field is far enough out of the way that we won't be discovered." Dylan asked.

"With enough luck, we should be able to detonate this whole pile and still not get noticed by those covee pricks." Connor replied.

He look up into the orange glazed evening sky. "We better get outta here…He'll be here soon and if he sees us, we're dead."

The three stood up and bolted for the edge of a large forest near the field. They dove into the bushes and twigs, and then hid under a pre-made blanket of leaves.

After what felt like hours, they noticed movement in the skies above. A small hole opened in the clouds and an even smaller black ship surrounded by a light blue hue flew in.

"That must be him, get your weapons." Said Connor, quietly.

The small black ship touched down, and a shaft slid open beneath it, revealing the dark, forbidding figure that was Kel. He stepped out, quickly looked around and headed for the fusion coils.

Connor took out his custom spike grenade and armed it, causing the spikes to extend from the middle.

Jim turned to him. "Dude, what are you doing? I thought we were just going to kidnap him."

"Before we can even get close to him, we need to startle and distract him." He turned and stared at Jim. "When you have the element of surprise on your side, you most certainly should use it."

They faintly heard Kel grumble something before he turned and began walking back to his ship.

"Shit, he's getting away." Jim mumbled.

"Not if I can help it…" Connor replied, his voice barely above a whisper.

He stood up and hurled the steel spike grenade. There was a loud pop from the tiny jets in the grenade, projecting it a bit farther, and causing it to land a few feet from Kel, which then exploded in a shower of spikes and shrapnel. Kel screamed in agony as the spikes pierced nearly the entire right side of his body.

"Now!" Connor shouted. The three rushed from the brush, and sprinted towards Kel, weapons and blades drawn.

Kel's eyes flared red. He grabbed one of the spikes in his shoulder, and winced as he ripped it out. He grinned and lunged towards Dylan, stabbing the bloody spike into his collar bone on the left side. Dylan howled in pain and fell over. Unfortunately, Connor and Jim didn't have time to help him up.

Connor leaped into the air and sucker punched Kel in the face, who flew off his feet and rolled in the dirt a few feet away. Jim jumped on Kel and started beating on him until he was flipped off and thrown into a tree stump. Kel then jumped up and bolted for Connor. He ran, jumped, and landed a backflip kick on Connor's shoulder. He grunted and fell to the ground with a loud thud.

Kel limped and winced in pain from the spikes in his side. Suddenly, Jim came up behind him and kicked one of the spikes deeper into his ribs. Kel shrieked from the tormenting agony, spun around, landed an upper-cut on Jim and then kicked him in the stomach, which at the same time, winded him and sent him flying into the bushes about 15 feet away.

"Hey, bitch!" shouted Connor, recovering from the kick. "Come get some."

Kel began to glow with a light-blue-ish hue. "You shouldn't have said that…" He said menacing.

The two boys vaulted towards each other, and interlocked hands. Connor grunted in shock when his hands came in contact with Kel's, which were surprisingly cold.

"It's just like old times, isn't it?" Kel smiled coldly.

"Yeah, except for one thing…" Connor replied in a pained voice.

"What?"

"All those other times, you were fully conscious."

"What-?" Suddenly, Dylan came up behind Kel and wrapped a chloroform soaked cloth around his mouth and nose. Kel struggled fiercely for a few moments, and then went completely limp.

"Nice job there." Connor commented.

"Thanks. Hey, could you hold him for a second? I gotta go get Jim…" Dylan replied.

"Sure."

"Just don't let go of that cloth. As soon as the chloroform is removed, he'll start to wake back up."

"Oh shit, really? In that case, there's no way in hell that I'm letting this thing go."

"Good."

Dylan helped Jim out of the bushes who, needless to say, was somewhat less than happy.

"Man, when that son of a bitch wakes back up, he is so dead…" Jim growled.

"Cool it big guy, we got what we came for. Now let's get him in the back of the warthog and bounce. This place is creeping me out."

The three loaded Kel into the back of a troop-transport warthog along with a few fusion coils and sped off into the darkening distance.


	34. Chapter 34

**Fusion**

**Chapter 34**

Kel awoke in a dark room, a dull ache throbbing in his right side, but he couldn't figure out why. The last thing he could remember was…

He struggled to move and get up, only to realize that he was strapped to the very chair he was seated in. Every move he made sent a sharp blade of agony down his right side. He cried out, and struggled free himself, only resulting in more pain. He screamed out of frustration and discomfort. Suddenly, an incredibly bright light shone from the ceiling, illuminating the whole room.

The room revealed itself to be some kind interrogation room, being very empty except for a few chairs and a wide table.

"What the hell…where am I?" He wondered out loud.

Suddenly a door in the wall before him opened and Connor stepped out. "You know perfectly well where you are…"

Kel grinned menacingly. "I was wondering when we'd see each other again…"

Connor ignored his comment. "What happened to you?"

Kel stared blankly.

"You were a good guy once…what the hell happened? What did she do to you?"

Kel gazed off into space for a moment. "She…helped me."

Connor leaned forward and looked intently into his crimson eyes. "She helped you?" he replied inquisitively.

"Yes. I'm better now…I don't hurt like I used to."

Connor slowly stood back up, a cold realization coming over him. He then turned around and stormed out of the room.

Kel smirked. "If only he knew…"

Connor quickly walked back to the room where the others were waiting.

He swung the door open, and everyone looked up at him.

"Well?" Jim asked.

"I think I've figured it out."

Everyone stared intently.

"I think he's in love with Dark Samus."

The few last syllables sent the group into an uproar.

"Aww shit!"

"What?!"

"Son of a bitch!"

"You can't be serious…"

A look of regret and helplessness spread across Connor's face. "When I asked him about how he got corrupted, he said that she helped him and that he's all better now. He also mentioned that "He doesn't hurt anymore". The only thing that could heal him like that as far as I'm concerned, is love. He was pretty messed up on the inside."

"But how do you know that's its Dark Samus's fault?" Samus asked.

"Trust me…I know him better than anyone else. Dark Samus is really the only one who would and could do this. She won him over when she won his heart."

Jim sighed. "Teenagers…What is it with you guys and your constant need for love and all that shit? I just don't get it…"

Dylan looked at him. "It's because you're not a teenager Jim…"

"Guys we're getting off topic," Connor interrupted, "this is serious! If we don't break his love for her in some way shape or from…who knows if he'll ever be normal again."

"Well, all we need to do is kill her, right?" Jim suggested.

"It isn't that simple." Chief commented. "You can't just 'kill' someone with a power level of her magnitude. An escapade like that requires caring planning. And plenty of ammo."

"I couldn't have said it better myself." Chelsea added.

The group went silent, and the majority turned their heads towards Connor.

Connor stood there for a moment, staring endlessly into the space before him, a space that weighed heavily with the dead silence of the room.

"Well, if we're going to kill Dark Samus, we need to start planning now. We have Kel in captivity, so he shouldn't be a problem…But if we work together, we can get this done quickly and efficiently. Who's with me?"

"I'm with you."

"So am I."

"Me too."

"As am I."

For a moment, Jim hesitated. "I'm…I'm with you." He stood up, and addressed the group. "I may not like Kel, but I preferred him when he wasn't always trying to kill us." 

"Oh, so there is a rational side to you, Jim." Connor remarked sarcastically.

Jim smirked. "Shut up…"

"Oh Jim, you never change."


	35. Chapter 35

**Fusion**

**Chapter 35**

Dark Samus stood in a pool of phazon, watching intently as the beautiful stars lethargically passed overhead. She had been awaiting Kel's return for quite a lot longer than she expected. She knew something was wrong, however what exactly was wrong, was entirely beyond her. She gazed into the beautiful star-lit sky.  
"Where are you?" she whispered.

Dark Samus closed her eyes and thought hard for a moment, slowly recreating an image of Reach in her head. She remembered once seeing a large grey building in a rather cold part of the planet. She thought hard for a moment, and then remembered seeing the words "ONI Sword base" imprinted on the walls.

_Well,_ She thought, _If there's anywhere to start searching for him, it's there. That place seeing pretty important last time I was there…_

Suddenly, she began to surround herself with a strange form of space-bending energy, and in an instant, was swallowed by a cloud of phazon.

When she opened her eyes back up, she was sitting just outside the walls of the heavily fortified ONI Sword base. She stretched out with her extrasensory abilities and searched the inside of the building. Kel was nowhere to be found, at least not in the building. She felt Kel's aura coming from directly beneath the structure, 200 metres below it that is. She stared at its dull grey composition, and thought for a moment about how exactly she was supposed to get inside. She could easily blast a hole in the wall, however she didn't know what was inside, nor did she want to risk attracting any unwanted attention.

She sat there and pondered for a moment, before being distracted by a by-passing phantom drop ship accompanied by two spirit drop ships and about nine banshees. A small grin stretched across her face.

"Perfect." She whispered.


	36. Chapter 36

**Fusion**

**Chapter 36**

Kel woke with a start. Shining into his eyes was an immensely bright surgical light.

"Ah! Son of a bitch!" he cried out in pain. His eyes darted around the room. "…where am I now?" He groaned.

A loud voice came over an intercom in one of the corners of the room. "You're in a heavy containment unit."

Kel looked around and surveyed the room. It was large, white, and very clean. A window placed high up on one of the walls gazed upon the room like a vacant, condescending eye. A few people, presumably scientist or doctors, peered out of the window, observing Kel's restrained body. As he strained to look through the pane, he was able to make out the shapes of Connor and a few of the others from the group.

He tried to move, only to realize that he was strapped to what appeared to be an operating table of some sort. His steel cuffs refused to accept any limb or body movement of any kind. He struggled with his restraints for a moment before finally giving up.

"Sorry, but you're not going anywhere." The voice over the intercom spoke, "You're strapped down with stainless steel in a lab two hundred meters below the surface. This is the highest form of security we can afford at the moment."

"Let. Me. Out." Kel said menacingly.

Five different scientists entered the room, one of them carrying a large steel suitcase. Kel watched intently as they opened the case, revealing a multitude of syringes and sharp doctor's tools.

Kel's eyes went wide. He always had a strange feeling of uneasiness around needles and syringes. He struggled fiercely and tried to free himself, but to no avail.

One of the scientists began to make his way over to Kel, a full syringe in hand. It appeared to be containing some kind of thick, dark blue liquid.

The scientist was only a few feet away from Kel when he spoke. "If you enjoy having both of your hands, then I suggest that you keep that needle away from me."

The man hesitated for a moment, unsure of his own safety. He looked at one of the others for reassurance. The other man nodded.

"Go ahead. There is literally nothing he can do."

The scientist made the rest of the way over to Kel before finally sticking the needle into his neck and injecting the fluid. Kel screamed out of agony and fury.

"Take your hands off me!" He shrieked. He eyes flared like a bonfire. The liquid, acting like a tranquilizer, put him out immediately. He eyes shut, and his body went limp.

Connor watched attentively from the window above, holding Chelsea close.

"What are they gonna do?" He asked. One of the doctors turned to him.

"Surgery. They're going to operate on him to first find out what's causing the corruption. Then, assuming that they're successful, they will attempt to eradicate the virus. However it will take a while. These procedures are not fast, nor are they simple."

Connor sighed and looked back out the window. Down below, the scientists and doctors prepared to cut Kel's unconscious body open. Suddenly, his left arm jerked. The men all looked at each other, wondering what to think. He _was_ unconscious…right?

Just then, Kel's eyes shot open. They spread as wide as they could before quickly contorting into a frightening glare. His body began glow brilliantly with a turquoise hue, his arms and legs snapping up and ripping the restraints right from the very table they were welded to. He then sat up, tearing the remaining restraints from the table, the doctors and scientists desperately trying to open the security door.

Kel stood up and screamed as he lifted his arms up high, causing every object in the room to levitate into the air. The doctors and scientists all screamed in terror as Kel quickly shot his arms out to the sides, throwing them, and everything else against the walls.

His eyes flared red as he lifted his right arm into the air and shot a bolt of phazon up into the ceiling, creating a large hole in the structure. He squatted down for a split second before propelling himself out of the building on a large stream of phazon.

The doctor behind the glass spoke into the intercom, "We need security and medics down here A.S.A.P."

The group stared in awe of what they had just witnessed.

"Well…they sure as hell pissed him off." Connor said.

"No kidding…" Chelsea replied.

"I can't believe he flew off like that…" Samus spoke, her voice just barely above a whisper. "I thought he was secure…I thought we had him."

"We all did." Dylan replied.

"So…what now?" Jim asked. "For all we know, he could be flying back to get that Spark Rifle thing…and if he does, we're pretty much screwed."

"That's what I'm worried about…" Connor said quietly.

Suddenly, the building began shake violently. The lights flickered for a moment and the building brought itself back to a standstill just seconds before another tremor shook the facility.

The sound of a loaded gun came from behind them. Everyone spun around, only to see the Chief standing there, assault rifle in hand.

"Dude, what are you doing?" Jim asked.

"Well I, for one, am not going to stand around while the Covenant break through our doors and some crazy corrupted kid goes around melting everything he sees…"

Connor pulled out his DMR. "Neither am I. He's my best friend, and I'm not gonna lose him because some evil bitch stole his heart…"

"Me neither. I'm with you guys." Chelsea said, pulling out her magnum.

"Count me in." Dylan said.

"I'm with you too." Samus said.

"I guess I kind of have to tag along, don't I?" Jim said sarcastically.

Suddenly the wall a few meters away from them erupted in an explosion of shrapnel, plasma bolts, and what appeared to be phazon. Dark Samus, suit less and covered with blazing phazon, strode menacingly into the room.

She smiled sweetly. "Well if it's too much of a chore, you could just stay here with me…"

"Whoa…" Jim said, slightly in a daze from her beauty.

A large sphere of phazon formed in Dark Samus's hand. Seconds before she unleashed it, it was shot and the sphere erupted, sending her flying back out through the hole.

Wounded, Dark Samus staggered back to her feet, angered by their retaliation.

Connor stepped through the hole and out into the cold, ice wrapped landscape, DMR in hand.

"Hey bitch!" he grinned, "Come get some."

Dark Samus lunged at Connor who, at the last second, struck her on the forehead with the butt end of his rifle. She quickly stood back up and threw a punch at his face. Quickly dodging it, he spun around, drove an uppercut into the underside of her chin and then kicked her in the stomach, sending her flying back. She landed hard on the frigid ice a few meters away. She stood back up and smiled.

"You're quite the fighter aren't you?"

"I learnt it from an old friend…" Connor replied.

Samus and the Chief walked through the gaping hole in the lab's wall. Chelsea, Dylan and Jim followed closely behind.

"Oh good…more company…" Dark Samus said quietly.

Suddenly, her gentle figure lifted, and she left the very ground she stood upon. Surrounded by burning phazon, she rose into the air, eyes flaring and hair flailing in the wind.

"Get back!" Samus shouted.

Almost as if in response to Samus's warning, a large wave of beautiful blue light was unleashed upon them, sending the group flying back towards the lab walls.

Dark Samus then formed a large orb of phazon in her hands and aimed at Dylan, who struggled frantically to get up and out of the way.

Samus leaped to her feet and sprung into the air, tackling Dark Samus mere milliseconds before the bright ball of light was launched at Dylan. As she fell to the ground with her dark twin, the bright blue spheroid was hurled high into the air and erupted in a gorgeous explosion of blue fire and sparks.

Seeing an opportunity, the Chief bolted for Samus and her evil counterpart.

Samus rolled onto to her back so that Dark Samus was on top of her.

The dark angel smiled evilly. "You make it too easy-" By the time she finished her sentence, the Chief had tackled her from behind and the two of them were flying towards one of the concrete supports. The Chief forced Dark Samus to crash face first into the pillar, causing to cup her face in agony.

Chelsea, struggling to stand back up, primed her magnum and shot Dark Samus in both her legs. She howled in pain and curled up into a fetal position.

"Ha! Incapacitation, bitch!" Connor shouted triumphantly.

A light layer of phazon formed around Dark Samus's thin body, her wounds beginning to heal ever so slowly.

"Not so fast…" Samus said as she charged up her arm cannon, preparing the final blow.

"Wait!" Connor shouted.

"What?"

"We need her alive…at least for now."

Dark Samus moaned in pain, her body curled up so tightly it almost appeared as though gravity had betrayed her and was forcing her inward.

"Connor, she has powers far beyond our comprehension. She is too dangerous to be left alive."

"Just hear me out for a second, alright? We had Kel in captivity, or at least we thought we did. If he had simply stayed where he was, then by now the plan would have worked exactly as it should have. The whole idea was that we were gonna use him as bait so that Dark Samus would come to his rescue. We were gonna snag her at the last moment and hold both of them in captivity, and hopefully, from that, figure out what's happened to him. But now, he's gone, and the only way that I can think of to get him back over here, is to now use Dark Samus as bait."

Samus stood there and pondered for a moment. "Alright, but under one condition: That there is always at least one person watching her. We can't risk letting her escape."

"Deal."

Dark Samus looked up at Connor pleadingly before the Chief came up and stuck a tranquilizing syringe into her neck. She gasped from the sensation of cold steel penetrating her pale skin and immediately went limp.

"Alright, let's get her inside. She's going to need a lot of restraints." Samus said.

"Wait…where's Jim?" Chelsea asked.

The group scanned the area for a brief moment. Connor spun around and looked back towards a damaged section of the lab's wall. His eyes widened.

"Guys..." He said nervously. The rest of the group turned around, a few of them gasping in horror.

There, impaled on a sharp metal beam jutting out from the damaged wall, was Jim. His body hung loosely like he was some kind of ragdoll, blood dripping down the wall behind him.

"Son of a bitch!" Dylan shouted angrily, "I was just starting to like that guy!"

"How could this have happened?" Chelsea asked quietly.

"This most likely occurred when Dark Samus unleashed that wave of blue light." The Chief answered, "_We_ were simply thrown against the wall…however Jim wasn't so lucky."

"So…we got off easy?" Connor asked hesitantly.

"I guess so." Dylan replied.

Samus came up from behind the group, carrying the unconscious Dark Samus over her armored shoulders.

"Let's get her inside. Time is of the essence."


	37. Chapter 37

**Fusion**

**Chapter 37**

Kel landed hard on the dense, blue surface of the planet Phaaze, accidentally knocking the wind out of himself. After what had just happened, just the fact that he was able to breathe in the first place amazed him.

What had literally felt like seconds ago, he was strapped to an operating table, waiting to be ripped open for God knows what reason. He then remembers feeling an incredible surge of energy waking him up from a tranquilizer they tried to give him. Everything after that was a blur…for the most part. He remembers ripping himself from the operating table…and then what? He remembered hurting a few people, but he couldn't remember how he did it. After that, he recalled blasting a hole in the ceiling and then soaring out on a stream of phazon. The rest he couldn't remember.

He looked around, trying to find the ship that he flew back in, however, it was nowhere to be found. He did fly back in a ship, right? How else could he have gotten there so fast? A simple human such as himself could not simply blast through space unprotected as he was.

Then it all came back to him. He was in fact, protected. Protected by the vast amount of phazon that had literally swallowed his body. Kel looked down at his hands which were still engulfed by bright blue surges of phazon. He gazed into the beautiful swirls before him. How was containing this much power even possible?

He snapped out of his trance and came back to reality. What was he here for again? Then he remembered the strange, but devastating rifle he had stolen from a laboratory on Reach. He smiled slightly.

"That's right... I've come for my…weapon of mass destruction." He said jokingly.

He searched for an entrance into the phazon fortress before him. After a minute or two of searching, he discovered a door far to the right of where he had landed. After entering, it only took him a moment to locate the caustic rifle.

He smiled menacingly, "Now…let's go corrode the opposition."


End file.
